The life of General William Booth, the founder of the Salvation army

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THE LIFE OF
GENERAL WILLIAM BOOTH

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited

LONTJON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.

TORONTO

PRESENTED TO THE REV. WILLIAM BOOTH WHILE LABOURING AS
AN EVANGELIST IN THE METHODIST NEW CONNEXION. BY HIS
FRIENDS IN SHEFFIELD. IN AFFECTIONATE APPRECIATION OF HIS
ARDUOUS. ZEALOUS AND SUCCESSFUL LABOURS THERE AND L\
OTHER PARTS OF THE COMMUNITY. PRESENTED NOVEMBER 26
1856. AT A LARGE MEETING ASSEMBLED IN THE TEMPERANCE
HALL. REV H. WATTS. PRESIDENT OF CONFERENCE. CHAIRM.NN.

THE LIFE OF
GENERAL WILLIAM BOOTH

THE FOUNDER OF

THE SALVATION ARMY

BY

HAROLD BEGBIE

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I

** Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen. " — Milton

iQeto gotfe

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1920

A II rights reserved

COPTEIGHT, 1920,

By the MACiULLAN COMPA^'T

S-et up and electrotyped. Published March, 1523.

PREFACE

W^iLLiAM Booth is likely to remain for many centuries one
of the most signal figures in human history. Therefore, to
paint his portrait faithfully for the eyes of those who come
after us — a great duty and a severe responsibility — has
been my cardinal consideration in preparing these pages.
Only when circumstances insisted have I turned from my at-
tempt at portraiture to examine documents which will one
day be employed by the historian of the Salvation Army.

If I have succeeded in my work, posterity will be able
to feel something of the power of William Booth's person-
ality, and to understand how it was his spirit could touch the
human heart in so many lands and in almost all the varied
circumstances of mortal life. If I have failed, it may be
possible, I hope, because of the sincerity of my ambition, for
a better painter in another age to discern on my fading can-
vas at least two or three colours useful for a more living
likeness.

I desire to add that in my difficult task I have received
valuable help from Bramwell Booth, the son of William, and
the present General of the Salvation Army. But for good
or for evil the book is mine, and I alone stand at the judg-
ment bar. I have written as I wished to write, said what I
wished to say, and the book is my honest idea of the truth.

H. B.

London,
28th March, 19 19.

00

Vll

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
1829

PAGE

The Times into which our Hero was Born . . i

CHAPTER n
1828^1838

His Parentage, a Tale of the House in which he
WAS Born, and the Character of his Environ-
ments ....... 15

CHAPTER HI
I 838-1 844

Which tells of a Difficult Road leading up to a

Youthful Conversion . . . • 35

CHAPTER IV
1845

Beginnings of the New Life and the First Sermon

EVER Preached by William Booth . . -58

CHAPTER V

1845

What he Believed at this Time . . » 7S

CHAPTER VI
I 845-1 848

Obedience to Authority coupled with the Deter-
mination TO Achieve Greatness . . .80

ix

X THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH

CHAPTER Vn
1849

London; the Early Victorians . . . .91

PAGE

CHAPTER VHI
1849

The Call to Preach . . . . -99

CHAPTER IX
1850

A Crisis in Methodism ..... 104

CHAPTER X
1850-1851

Tells how William Booth became a Pastor, and

introduces the Reader to Catherine Mumford 107

CHAPTER XI
1852

The Beginnings of a Love Story . . . 123

CHAPTER XII
1852

Puritan Love-Letters . . . . '137

CHAPTER XIII
1852-1853

William Booth as a Successful Evangelist, Cath-
erine Mumford as a Guardian Angel . . 145

CHAPTER XIV
1853-1854

William Booth to Catherine Mumford . . 18^

CONTENTS xi

CHAPTER XV
1854-1855

PAGE

The Evangelist Troubled about Many Things . 203

CHAPTER XVI

1855

Marriage, Honeymoon, and the Theology of Re-
vivalism . . . . . .251

CHAPTER XVH
1855-1856

The Happiness of a Young Married Couple . . 262

CHAPTER XVHI ■
1857-1861

Which Tells of a Thorn in the Flesh, Sectarian

Differences, and a Break with Methodism . 274

CHAPTER XIX
1861-1864

Wilderness . . . . . . . 292

CHAPTER XX
1865

The Move to London ..... 308

CHAPTER XXI
I 865-1867

A Lady Lodger's Account of the Booths* Home Life 315

CHAPTER XXII
I 865-1 868

The First London Mission .... 335

xii THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH

CHAPTER XXni
1878

A Summing Up in Middle Age .... 348

PAGE

CHAPTER XXIV
I 874-1 878

From the Christian Mission towards the Salvation

Army ....... 357

CHAPTER XXV
1877-1878

Which gives some Account of the Happiness and
Excitement of the Mission and Descriptions of
** Holiness Meetings ''.,.. 373

CHAPTER XXVI
1876-1878

Letters of the Period in Various Moods . . 393

CHAPTER XXVII
1878-1879

The Rev. William Booth becomes General of the

Salvation Army ..... 403

CHAPTER XXVIII
1881-1882

The Question of Holy Communion . . . 423

CHAPTER XXIX
1877-1881

Hostility, Suspicion, and Opposition . . . 434

ILLUSTRATIONS

William Booth (after a Presentation Portrait)

(1856) Frontispiece

FACING
PAGE

William Booth's Birthplace (Nottingham) 20

The Rev. William Booth (1859) 274

The Rev. William and Catherine Booth (i860) . . . 286

William Booth's Mother (Mary Moss Booth) .... 326

General Bramwell Booth 351

Mrs. Bramwell Booth 353

Emma Booth-Tucker (died 1903) 398

Facsimile of Official Note Heading with William Booth's

Criticism (1878) 404

William Booth (1879) 4^5

A Cartoon pubHshed in Vanity Fair (1882) .... 436

Xlll

They shall mount up -zvith wings as eagles

XV

THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH

CHAPTER I

THE TIMES INTO WHICH OUR HERO WAS BORN

1829

From a study of the Nottingham Date Book it would seem
that the unchronicled occurrence of WilHam Booth's birth
in 1829 was preceded and accompanied by events almost
as horrible and alarming as any that ever intimidated the
decent inhabitants of a civilized English town.

Nature at that time showed her most ferocious face to
the midland capital; and man, who is said to begin where
nature ends, seems to have had no difficulty in exceeding
these excesses of environment.

It was a period of tremendous storms and of horrible
brutality: of thunder, lightning, and devastating rains: of
hideous crimes and outrageous destitution. Nine months
before the birth of William Booth the town was swept and
flooded by the most angry tempest within living memory;
three days after his birth immense masses of rock gave way
both in the centre of the city and in the then neighbouring
hamlet of Sneinton, plunging down in many hundreds of
tons upon the houses beneath. A more or less formal
revival in the religious life of the city which marked the
year of the great rivivalist's birth may have been due in
no small part to these alarming occurrences. Many churches
and chapels in 1829 were restored, repaired, or reopened
for public worship, the local dignitaries taking a ceremonial
part in some of the celebrations which marked these efforts
either to appease the heavens or to Christianize the people.

Two years before, the town had been deeply shocked
by the discovery of a gang of resurrection men in its midst
who went about at night " despoiling the sanctuaries of the
dead." So sharply did this disclosure agitate and excite

2 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

the minds of Nottingham people that, when the murders
committed by Burke and Hare in Edinburgh became known
in 1829, the whole town was thrown into a condition of
panic which necessitated action by the magistrates. Burke
and Hare were " connected with the murder by suffocation
of thirty or forty persons, for the sake of the money arising
from the sale of their bodies for the purposes of dissection " ;
and so alarmed were the inhabitants of Nottingham by
these dreadful disclosures that '' timid people dared not
to venture out after dark, and all sorts of alarming reports
were in circulation." Little was talked of, we are told,
'' but rumours of pitch-plasters being placed on people's
mouths, and of others being missing and burked." The
magistrates of Nottingham were obliged, so general was
the panic, to issue a notice declaring that there was no
foundation for the alarm.

Murders, highway robberies, mysterious stabbings of
women in the streets at night, crimes of every kind, public
executions and a public whipping witnessed by enonnous
crowds of people, escapes from the county gaol in Narrow
Marsh, riots and insurrections of a most demoniacal char-
acter, devastating fires, destructive floods, and thunder-
storms fatal to man and beast — these dire and dreadful
things continued to agitate the life of Nottingham through-
out the boyhood of William Booth. We may allow ourselves
the conjecture that the child was influenced in no small
measure by the continual excitement provoked by these
events, particularly when we remember the isolation of
provincial cities at that time and the general narrowness
of the outlook upon life. He would have heard on every
side of him breathless tales of murder and garottings,
descriptions of surging drunken crowds watching the hang-
ing of criminals; he would have seen the maddened rioters
when they tore down the iron railings in front of his father's
house to use them as weapons against the soldiers and
special constables ; he did see, and on many occasions,
bodies of men and women charging through the streets
to sack bakers' shops, returning with their arms full of
loaves; he was the witness again and again of such misery
and destitution, such haggard want and infuriating depriva-

» ♦ 4

I] THE TIMES IN WHICH BORN 3

tion, as filled the streets with angry mobs shouting for food,
compelled the authorities to read the Riot Act, and drove
thousands of people to seek the relief of the rates.

Children in the poor streets of great cities hear nothing
of political events; they are uninfluenced by the philos-
ophy of the period. But their minds, in that region which
psychologists name the unconscious, are influenced, and
powerfully influenced, by all the sights and all the sounds
of their environment. They take a passive part in the
life of their own immediate world, but their minds are
unconsciously active, and their characters are permanently
affected by the most transitory excitement of their time.

It is doubtful whether William Booth heard any dis-
cussions touching Catholic Emancipation, the Reform Bill,
Newman's work at Oxford, Negro Emancipation, and the
stubborn conservatism of that " unmanageable naval
oflicer," his sovereign lord, King William the Fourth. But
it is quite certain that he heard a number of stories of the
dreadful murder that was followed by the last execution
on Gallows Hill ; of the funeral by night, without religious
ceremonv, of a younj^ butcher who had committed suicide
in so deliberate a fashion that the jury was forced to bring
in a verdict of felo de se: of the great riot which led among
other things to the gutting of Nottingham Castle by incen-
diaries; of the public execution of some of the rioters;
of the frightful desolation wrought in the town by Asiatic
cholera ; of the fight between two young men on Mapperley
Plains for the love of a girl who had promised to marry the
winner, one of the men being killed in the contest; of more
than one execution of men for atrocious offences committed
against young women; of people transported for life on
trivial charges; of the last public flogging to take place
in Nottingham; of many a disastrous fire that swept
through the city; and of the crashing down of rock in
Sneinton Hermitage, close to his own home, with a noise
that seemed like the thunders of Judgment Day.

Gossip of this kind must have been general in the town,
particularly among children, and we know that it made a
dark impression on the mind pf William Booth. '' When but
a mere child," he says in his preface to In Darkest England,

4 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

published in 1890, " the degradation and helpless misery of
the poor stockingers of my native town, wandering gaunt
and hunger-stricken through the streets, droning out their
melancholy ditties, crowding the union or toiling like gal-
ley slaves on relief works for a bare subsistence, kindled in
my heart yearnings to help the poor which have continued to
this day, and which have had a powerful influence on my
whole life." He spoke on one occasion of his troubled
childhood, saying with some bitterness, which the reader
will readily understand, '' From the earliest days I was
thrown into close association with poverty in its lowest
depths." His mind, before it was penetrated by religious
illumination, must have been depressed by the gossip of
Nottingham back-streets and by the sights of misery and
want which confronted him at every turn.

In 1837, the year w^hich witnessed Queen Victoria's
accession to the throne, there was distress in Nottingham
of a most grievous and heartbreaking description. William
Booth, though only eight years of age, was powerfully
impressed by the horrors of that year. A public meeting
was held in the Exchange at which five thousand pounds
was subscribed for '' the relief of the widely-spread distress
amongst the operative classes, arising from an utter pros-
tration of the manufacturing interest." The numl^er of
persons thrown for subsistence upon the poor rates was
greater than ever before know^n. '' The enumeration w^as as
f ollow^s : — Within the w^alls of the house, 971. Two hun-
dred men on the roads, with families of four on an average,
1,000. Fed twice a day in a temporary erection on Back
Commons, 258. Children fed and educated, 200. Aged,
infirm, sick, etc., receiving outdoor relief, 1,200. Total
relieved from the rates weekly, 3,629; or about one in
fourteen of the entire population of the union." An entry
in the Nottinghaui Date Book shows that the local wages,
although shamefully inadequate, were higher than those of
the stockingers (4s. 6d. a week) mentioned in the Life of
Thomas Cooper.

The year 1838 was famous for a severe winter and the
freezing of the river Trent. The first stone of the new
church at Sneinton, where William Booth had been baptized,

I] THE TIMES IN WHICH BORN 5

was laid by Lord Manvers. Grace Darling's heroic exer-
tions to save the lives of people on board the wrecked
Forfarshire thrilled the whole country, and in Nottingham,
because a Mr. Churchill of the town was among those who
had perished, made a deep impression ; a monument was
set up in the General Cemetery.

In 1839 the new church at Sneinton was opened by the
Bishop of Lincoln, and we may take it as fully certain
that William Booth was present at this elaborate ceremonial.
Worse distress than ever occurred among the operatives,
lasting from that autumn to the spring of 1840. Three
thousand four hundred and eighty-one people received relief.
A riot was anticipated, and the troops in the town were
kept under arms.

In 1842 there was an attempt '' to promote a general
strike, or cessation from labour, until the document known
as the People's Charter became the law of the land." I
believe this is the first mention of a general strike, and it
seems as if Nottingham gave birth to the idea. Now and
again W^illiam Booth hung on the outskirts of the large
crowds that gathered to hear the Chartist orators.

In 1844 the whole town was staggered by a calamity
which could not fail to leave an impression on the mind
of young Booth. A labourer named William Saville, aged
29, who had been married at Sneinton Church, murdered his
wife and three children. He was executed on August 8,
and an immense crowd gathered to witness the spectacle.
" Eight was the hour of execution, but every available
space was occupied long before it arrived. Occasionally,
there came a cry from the surging mass that some one was
fainting or being crushed to death, and if the sufferer were
fortunate enough not to be entirely bereft of strength, he
or she was lifted up, and permitted to walk to the extremity
of the crowd on the shoulders of the people. Saville was led
forth, and at three minutes past eight, the drop descended.
Almost immediately after the mighty crowd broke, as it
were, in the middle. The anxiety, deep and general, to
witness the spectacle, was succeeded by an equally general
and still deeper desire to get away from the overpowering
and suffocating pressure. The result was positively awful.

6 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

The greater portion of the house doors along the Pavement
were closed, and those who were crushed against the walls
by the terrific, resistless tide had no means of escape.
Twelve persons were killed, and more than a hundred
received serious injuries: and of the latter, the deaths of
five, after lingering illnesses, were clearly traceable to the
same catastrophe."

William Booth had already started his life as a preacher
when in 1847 the curate of his old church at Sneinton com-
mitted suicide in the grounds of Nottingham Castle, shooting
himself on the refusal of a vicar in the town to accept him
as the lover of his daughter, a girl of seventeen years of
age.

These few events, however briefly related, will afford
some idea to the reader, not only of certain local influences
surrounding the childhood of AA^illiam Booth, but of the
spirit of the age in which he was born. How different was
that period from our own may perhaps be better seen in
one single occurrence, half grotesque and half scandalous,
which is recorded in the Nottingham Date Book as late
as 1852 :

April 28. — About twelve o'clock, a female about 38 years
of age, accompanied by her husband and two of his companions
stood in the Market Place, near the sheep pens. The female
was the wife of Edward Stevenson, rag merchant, ^Millstone
Lane, and he had come to the determination, with her consent,
to dispose of her by auction. A new rope, value sixpence, was
round her neck. Stevenson, with his wife unabashed by his
side, held the rope, and exclaimed, '* Plere is my wife for sale :
I shall put her up for two shillings and sixpence." A man
named John Burrows, apparently a navvy, proffered a shilling
for the lot, and after some haggling she was knocked off at
that price, and they all went to The Spread Eagle to sign ar-
ticles of agreement, the lady being the only party able to sign
her name.

One cannot now imagine such an occurrence as this in
any civilized town, and the remem1)rance of it, kept in
mind during that part of our narrative which deals with
the childhood and youth of William Booth, will enable the
reader to enter more closely into the thoughts and feelings
of the young evangelist. He was not only born in Netting-

I] THE TIMES IN WHICH BORN 7

ham at the beginning of the nineteenth century, he was
shaped by the Nottingham of that period. And if he
breathed the excited spirit of reform which filled the air
of the town at that time, as certainly did he take into his
soul the dark and squalid colour of his environment. He
not only saw suffering, he experienced it. He not only
witnessed the destructive force of sin, he was aware in
himself of its power. From his earliest years he was thrown
into close association with poverty in its lowest depths;
and on the mountains he remembered the pit from which
he was digged. In few instances of great and remarkable
men is it more possible to trace throughout the years of
their lives, up to the very last, so clear and deep a mark of
the earliest influences upon their character.

That there was some effort to reach the people of
Nottingham with a more pressing sense of the claims of
religion than was offered at that time by the established
churches and chapels, may be gathered from the fact that
an evangelist from Yorkshire visited the town, and preached
the gospel of conversion with a fair measure of success. No
mention is made of this John Smith in the Nottingham
Date Book, but it is quite clear from other sources that his
visit was memorable in the religious history of the town.
Nottingham was dear to the heart of Wesley, and that
great man has left behind him an affectionate tribute to
the honesty and kindness of its generous people. He
visited the town on several occasions. His preaching
brought about numerous conversions and led to the estab-
lishment of a strong and enduring Methodism. But the
zeal of the founder, the fire and passion which inspired
his teaching as an evangelist, was cooling, and towards the
middle of the nineteenth century, Methodism in Nottingham,
as well as elsewhere throughout England, was becoming a
somewhat formal school of religion. It was beginning to
forget the poor.

The visit of John Smith wrought a change, and it is
fair to regard him as a precursor of David Greenbury, James
Caughey, and William Booth ; although he is not to be
reckoned one of the immortals among revivalists. He had
neither the scholarly sweetness of Wesley, nor the deep

8 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

humanity of William Booth; he believed in conversion,
but people had to come to his chapel to experience it; he
desired the salvation of sinners, but he did not seek them
where they were to be found ; whether he felt for the wrongs
of the people we do not know, but he is certainly not
conspicuous as a champion of their rights.

John Smith, we are told, " was exceedingly wild and
wicked as a youth, but, getting converted in a revival at
his native village in 1812, he became a local preacher."
One who knew him tells me that he had the habit of praying
at public meetings with his eyes tight squeezed, his arms
outspread, his hands wide open, and with his fingers working
rapidly — a fashion which was imitated by others. One of
his phrases was, '' God will stand to His engagements ;
His work must go on." Typical of his method is a '' re-
markable incident " which occurred at a love feast ^ over
which ]\Ir. Smith presided in the Halifax Place Chapel:

A local preacher rose and said that " he had once enjoyed the
blessing of entire sanctitication, but through unwatchfulness
had in this respect suffered loss." With much feeling he added
that he was now earnestly longing and waiting for the restora-
tion of this great privilege. Mr. Smith instantly started from
his seat in the pulpit, and cried, " The all-cleansing power is on
you now ! " For a moment he hesitated, it was but a moment,
and he then exclaimed, while the whole of his body quivered
with emotion, " It is ; I feel it in my heart ! " The congregation
then united in thanksgiving and prayer ; in a short time the
windows of heaven were opened, and there was a rush of holy
influence, such as by the majority of that vast assembly was
never before experienced. It seemed like a stream of light-
ning passing through every spirit. At one time, twenty persons
obtained the blessing of perfect love, and rose up rapidly one
after another, in an ecstasy of praise, to declare that God had
then cleansed their heart from all sin.

David Greenbury, who exercised no small influence on
William Booth, also came to Nottingham from Yorkshire.
He seems to have been a different type from John Sniith
in many respects. He is described as looking like a country

1 The Love Feast was at this time a form of religious service peculiar
to the Methodist communities. It was a meeting for public testimony,
generally accompanied by partaking of bread and water as a sign of
unity, mutual confidence, and good-will.

I] THE TIMES IN WHICH BORN 9

squire — a tall, bearded man, not unlike the General Booth
of later life. One of his favourite hymns, it is remembered,
contained the lines —

Though in the flesh I feel the thorn,
I bless the day that I was born.

He rejoiced in life, and found a deep pleasure in his work.
It is said that he was the first man to encourage William
Booth to continue his public speaking. One of his converts
became the talk of Nottingham, and the story must have
given an impulse to the spirit of young Booth — perhaps the
first impulse of that kind. A notorious rascal called '' Besom
Jack," whose wife and children starved while he went from
tavern to tavern — a lady is still living in Nottingham w^ho
remembers how his wife would come to her mother's back
door begging for old tea-leaves — was converted at one of
David Greenbury's meetings and became a sensible, good,
honest man. a glad and cheerful Christian, who testified
'wherever he v/ent to the blessings and the miracle of con-
version.

But the greatest influence upon William Booth was
exercised, beyond all question, by the American evangelist
James Caughey, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal
Church. This man attracted enormous crowds to Wesley
Chapel, and brought about an undoubted revival of religion
in the town. He was a tall, thin, smooth-shaven, cada-
verous person with dark hair. One who often saw him
and well remembers him tells me that he wore a voluminous
black cloak folded about him in a Byronic manner; his
voice was subdued, he gave no sign of an excitable dis-
position, his preaching warmed slowly into heat and passion
which communicated themselves with magnetic instan-
taneousness to his audiences.

It will give the reader a faithful idea of this preacher
and his method, and also a general idea of the prevalent
rehgious feeling, if I quote at this point a rather striking
description of one of his religious meetings which I was
fortunate enough to discover in an ancient Nottingham
newspaper. The reporter, it would seem, was unlucky

10 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

in being born before the advent of the sensational
press :

The preaching of Mr. Caughey creates a very great sensation
in the town ; the chapel is crowded even in the aisles during
every service, and at its conclusion numbers of penitents make
their way to the communion-rails, near the pulpit, to seek, under
the terrors of guilty consciences, benefit there. It w^as an-
nounced on Wednesday evening, that two hundred persons had
given in their names as having received conversion under ]\Ir.
Caughey's ministry since he came to Nottingham, and we be-
lieve his visit will not soon be forgotten. There is nothing in
the manner in which the reverend gentleman commences the
service to lead the reader to expect what is to follow. He gives
out the hymn in a calm, easy, unappreciating style, and in a tone
so conversational, that persons sitting in a distant part of the
chapel find it impossible to gather the purport of his words. It
is more with the air and tone of a man reading a paragraph
from a newspaper to a select party than that of a preacher pro-
claiming an important message to a large congregation.

In his prayer, too, very few indications are given of the
astonishing power he possesses over the mind ; though it is not
without its peculiarities. He lifts his hands towards heaven,
and keeps them in that posture during the whole of his suppli-
cation, like Moses, when Israel fought in Rephidim; and once
or twice, perhaps, at some point of deeper feeling clasps his
palms together, and then re-elevates them into the same poetic
attitude. But, generally speaking, his prayers have rather the
tone of calm disquisition than address to the Deity ; and nothing
at all in them expressive of power, except when a gush of deep
affectionate feeling makes its way through the mild tranquillity,
or at rarer intervals flashes out for an instant the lightning
which has been so calmly folded in its mantle of quiet cloud.

His reading of Scripture betrays even less of power than his
prayer; it is not performed without a certain subdued feeling;
but there is a peculiar off-hand style with it, and a certain tone
of dramatic appreciation, without any great apparent solemnity
or reverence in the delivery. It is not till he prepares to name
his text, that any extraordinary power is manifested; he gen-
erally prefaces it with some observation on what he has felt
during the day, or since he entered the pulpit ; or with an appeal
to a certain character whom he prophesies to be in the congre-
gation. Then, indeed, it becomes plain, however the preju-
diced visitor may have doubted it before, that the man is in
earnest — terribly in earnest ; and that every word he says he
both feels and believes.

On Tuesday night, when the preliminary parts of the service
had been gone through, and the Bible lay open before him,

I] THE TIMES IN WHICH BORN ii

instead of taking his text, as it was natural to expect he would,
he startled the congregation by a searching appeal to some back-
slider, whom he individualized as present among them ; and in
his manner of doing this showed great knowledge of human
nature, and an intimate acquaintance with the subtleties of the
mind. Such a character, if present in the place, unless his heart
were triple brass, must have been struck as with a thunderbolt.
Of the heart indeed his dissections are masterly ; he is evidently
well versed in its anatomy. As he represented a certain char-
acter, a backslider perhaps, or a defrauder, or a profane person,
many eyes seemed fraught with the anxious inquiry, " Is it I ? "
until at length, as the lineaments of the portrait became clearer
and more distinctly defined, the shrinking look and trembling
frame declared in unmistakable language, '' It is I ! "

In his manner of looking at a text there is something original ;
ingenious and unexpected terms are given to the different parts
of it; and as each is illustrated, it tells with surprising power
upon the congregation. This effect is heightened by a certain
abruptness of delivery, which, scorning all preface and apology,
rushes instantly to its point, and takes possession of his hearers
by storm. His eloquence, too, is not an even, uninterrupted
flow of words, but his speech is forced out in jerks of great
intensity, with an interval between each burst. It must be al-
lowed that his style is highly poetical ; not that he indulges in
fine, unusual words and strings of epithets ; there is no attempt
at display of this kind ; simple and plain, his style is yet re-
markable for its poetic effectiveness ; and to this he owes a
considerable portion of the influence he exerts over his hearers.

On Tuesday night, the force with which he imaged a fold of
sheep, to illustrate the conduct of the newly converted mind,
was singular ; it was not only quite evident that every word he
said he saw visibly before him, but he made his hearers see it
too ; the swine prowling about the fold and leering at the flock,
manifesting no desire to be numbered among the sheep, was
forcibly contrasted with the lamb which wxnt bleating around
to spy an entrance, and at last, when the door was opened by
the shepherd, darted in. The effect of such passages as these
was very much increased by the minister's appropriate attitudes
and gestures ; not his mouth only, but his eyes and hands and
his whole person combining to give utterance to his eloquent
thought. Every scene he drew was visibly before the eyes of
the congregation ; where he pointed with his hand, they looked ;
and the vacant air in front of the pulpit which he chose as the
canvas on which to paint his vivid designs, was evidently no
longer a vacancy to his hearers, as was quite manifest from the
fixed stare with which they gazed into it. When he spoke of
angels as hovering over the people, and occupying the ring en-
closed by the gallery of the chapel, and invented conversations

12 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

which he said they might be then holding with respect to certain
individuals in the place, the silence that prevailed among the
people was profound ; they scarcely dared to breathe, and
seemed as if they really were hearing the rustling and flapping
of the invisible wings. But as this picture was allowed to fade
away, and an appeal to the feelings of the people followed ; and
when the solicitude of the souls of the departed after the eternal
welfare of their friends below was dwelt upon, a universal sob
burst from the assembly, and even the faces of the rugged and
weather-beaten men were illuminated by the reflection of the
lamps in the water upon their cheeks. At times this emotion
assumed a more frantic character, shouts, groans, and all man-
ner of pious ejaculations rising from all parts of the house, until
the preacher's voice became inaudible, and the whole place
resounded with the wailings and cries.

The arrangements were extremely well ordered and efficient ;
during the prayer-meeting which succeeded the service, num-
bers of persons were observed in all parts of the chapel, who
had been appointed to lead up to the communion-rails those who
were desirous of being publicly prayed for ; and as they ob-
tained assurance of what they sought, led them out orderly at
the vestry door.

The Rev. Isaac Page, who was a boy at the time of
Caughey's visit, remembers seeing crowds of people clam-
bering over the iron railings in front of Wesley Chapel an
hour or more before the meeting opened. The chapel,
which seated eighteen hundred people, was densely thronged
in every part, and numbers were unable to enter at the
crowded doors. People remember seeing the tall figure of
Caughey standing up to preach in a breathless silence, and
being startled by the suddenness with which he thrust out
an arm, pointing upwards with a straight accusing finger,
and exclaiming, " There is a young man in the gallery
who had an awful dream last night; he thought the Day
of Judgment had come!" A hymn introduced by James
Caughey was sung all over Nottingham, as seventy or eighty
years afterwards the " Glory Song," introduced by another
American evangel is-t, was sung all over London. Caughey's
hymn contained these verses :

O Thou God of my salvation

My Redeemer from all sin.
Moved by Thy divine compassion,

Who hast died my soul to win :

I] THE TIMES IN WHICH BORN 13

Glory ! Glory ! Glory ! Glory !

Glory ! Glory ! God is Love !
Glory ! Glory ! Glory ! Glory !

Hallelujah! God is Love!

This has set my soul on fire,

Strongly glows the flame of love,
Higher mounts my soul and higher.

Longing for the rest above :
Glory ! Glory ! Glory ! Glory !

Glory ! Glory ! God is Love I
Glory ! Glory ! Glory ! Glory I

Hallelujah! God is Love !

The Wesleyan Alethodist Society, in one of those years, in-
creased, I am told, by 30,000 members.

The visit of this American evangelist, though it did
nothing to associate religion with humanitarian idealism,
and little to create a social conscience, nevertheless revived
the flames of AA^eslevan Methodism and breathed some sense
of greatness into the sordid air of a much troubled manu-
facturing town. It exercised a profound influence upon
William Booth's astonishing career, and in the shout of
" Glory ! Glory ! Glory ! '" one may trace the dawn of Booth's
great central preaching, that religion is not imposed as a
difficult and laborious thing by an exacting God, but given as
a blessing and deliverance to poor sorrowful creatures pun-
ished and afflicted by their own wrong-doing.

As regards the orthodox religious life of the town, it
would seem that Nottingham did not suffer so greatly as
other parts of the country from disreputable or sporting
clergymen. Parson Wyatt, for instance, the vicar of Snein-
ton Church, was a Puseyite, and is remembered by many
Nonconformists as a good, earnest, and zealous man. But,
on the whole, the churches of the town seem to have been
conducted on the principle that those who wanted religion
would come and ask for it, and those who stayed away had
deliberately elected for evil. There was no missionary
spirit. Men's minds were taken up with political and in-
dustrial questions. Christianity was distinctly in shadow.
It may be said with a fair degree of truth that through-
out the length and breadth of the land Anglican clergymen

14 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.i]

were Tories before everything else, and dissenting ministers,
as they were then called, in spite of a subdued interest in
revivalism, were in large measure concerned with Liberal
politics.

CHAPTER II

HIS PARENTAGE, A TALE OF THE HOUSE IN WHICH HE WAS
BORN, AND THE CHARACTER OF HIS ENVIRONMENTS

1828-1838

It is an interesting coincidence that the father of Herbert
Spencer came from Derby into the neighbourhood of
Nottingham at about the same time that the father of
WiUiam Booth migrated from Belper to a Nottingham
suburb. Both men speculated with their savings, moved by
the same hope of fortune from the extraordinary prosperity
of lace manufacture by machinery, and both were dis-
appointed in this ambition. The father of Herbert Spencer
withdrew before he was quite ruined; the father of William
Booth clung stubbornly and avariciously to his speculations,
finally dragging down his wife and family into a condition
of penury.

In Herbert Spencer's Autobiography an amusing anec-
dote is recorded which shows that his father had something
of the same spirit which animated William Booth. '' If
he saw boys quarrelling he stopped to expostulate; and
he could never pass a man who was ill-treating his horse
without trying to make him behave better." This incident
is recorded: " While he was travelling (between Derby and
Nottingham, I think) there got on the coach a man who
was half intoxicated. My father entered into conversation
with him, and sought to reform his habits, by pointing
out the evil resulting from it (sic). After listening good-
temperedly for a time the man replied, ' Well, y' see,
master, there mun be sum o' all sorts, and I'm o' that
sort.' "

If heredity were an exact science one might expect
William Booth to be a son of George Spencer, and Herbert
Spencer to be a son of Samuel Booth.

According to Mr. Phillimore, the author of County

15

i6 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

Pedigrees, distinct evidence runs back through the local
register '' associating the Booths with Belper at least as
early as the reign of Elizabeth." Whether the family dis-
tinguished itself in any way we do not know, but before
the days of Elizabeth the fifty-first Archbishop of York was
a William Booth, who had his favourite residence at South-
well, which is close to Nottingham, and where the William
Booth of our present history spent a part of his childhood.
A brother of this older William Booth, Lawrence, became
fifty-third Archbishop of York, and also made Southwell
his chief residence. He was a grievous failure as Lord
Chancellor, but it is wTitten that he took no bribes. In
private life, we are told, he was " an amiable and benevolent
man, expending large sums of money on educational and
charitable objects."

There seems to be no doubt that the family of General
■ Booth is connected by marriage with that family of Gregory
which gave in the person of Robert Gregory, a contemporary
of General Booth, a popular and picturesque Dean to St.
Paul's Cathedral. A William Booth of Belper, apparently
the great-grandfather of the evangelist, was married in 1742
to Elizabeth Gregory; the bondsman at the first marriage of
Samuel Booth in 1797 was Robert Gregory; and the evan-
gelist, on being told late in life of this coincidence, said that
he remembered being taken as a child to see an old lady who
was always spoken of as " Aunt Gregory."

Samuel Booth, father of the evangelist, was born at
Belper in 1775. It was in the town of Belper that Primi-
tive Methodists were first called Ranters; and since Samuel
Booth was nominally a Churchman, and a hard, taciturn,
unemotional man, it may be assumed that he shared in this
local contempt for the new sect. He appears to have been a
nail manufacturer, for on the occasion of his marriage in
1797 to one Sarah Lockitt he described himself in the
register as a nailer. Later he added to this business the
trade of builder and the profession of architect, earning a
fortune which enabled him to live in a fine house at Colston
Bassett and to describe himself sometimes as a " gentle-
man," sometimes as a *' yeoman." One child was born of
this first marriage, a son named William, who died of con-

II] PARENTAGE 17

sumption at the age of twenty-four, five years after his
mother's death in 1819.

Mary Moss, the second wife of Samuel Booth, and mother
of the evangehst, was born in 1791, six years before the first
marriage of her husband. Like Samuel Booth, she came of
Derbyshire stock, probably, as the name suggests and her
wonderfully handsome face corroborates, of Jewish origin.
She was the daughter of a well-to-do farmer. Her mother
died when she was quite young, and she went to live with
relations, the second marriage of her father not being con-
ducive to a happy family life. She encountered Samuel
Booth at Ashby-de-le-Zouch, whither he had gone to drink
the waters as a cure for rheumatism. On his first proposal
she refused him. He left the town indignant, but returned,
and renewed his proposal, leaving her no peace till she
accepted him. Of this marriage there were five children.
The eldest son, a boy named Henry, died in his third year;
the second child was a daughter, Ann, destined to exercise
some little infiuence on the evangelist in his early years ; the
third child was the evangelist himself, named William after
the son of the first marriage, who had died five years pre-
viously : and the two remaining children were girls —
Emma, a lifelong invalid who died unmarried, aged forty,
and Mary, who became Mrs. Newell, and died at the age of
sixty-nine. William Booth, therefore, grew up the only
son of the family, with an elder sister and two younger
sisters.

Samuel Booth did not come to Nottingham until he had
more or less impoverished himself by speculation, and in
leaving Colston Bassett it is quite certain that he not merely
hoped to retrieve his fortunes, but was positively obliged by
his altered circumstances to seek a very much humbler way
of living.

In those days Nottingham was just beginning to lose its
ancient charm of a beautiful and pleasant market-town
distinguished by a romantic history. Deering had boasted
in 1750 that the town, "adorned with many stately new
buildings, the castle on the left, and Sneinton and Wolwick
Hills on the right, presents the traveller coming from the
south with a surprisingly grand and magnificent prospect,

1 8 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

in the framing of which it is hard to eay whether Art or
Nature has the greatest share ; a prospect which puts even
a person the most acquainted with all parts of England, to
stand, to name its equal."

But a later writer had to paint a more sombre picture.
He exclaims :

Could the worthy Doctor rise from the graveyard of St.
Peter's with his flowing surtout, his powdered wig, three-cor-
nered hat, high-heeled shoes, and silver buckles, and be placed
in the Meadows, his surprise would be, that so fine a view
should have been so woefully damaged ; and those modern
architectural embellishments, the chimney-stalks, the low and
dingy habitations, wharf buildings, and other graceful erections,
which so greatly mar the prospect, would doubtless provoke an
expression of indignant disapproval.

The extraordinary prosperity of the lace industry, w^hich
attracted thousands of workmen and speculators into the
towm in 1823, suffered a check in 1825, and soon afterwards
spent itself, plunging a large population into poverty, dis-
tress, and ruin. But the effect of the fever, or, as Spencer
called it, '' the mania," was horribly and permanently to
disfigure the town. Herbert Spencer's father came to Not-
tingham as a lace manufacturer; William Booth's father
came as a builder; and an entry in the Date Book in April,
1825, will give the reader some notion of how the specu-
lative builders, even when they lost their money, succeeded
in changing the character of the town:

The only feature in connection with the fever that remains
for notice was the extraordinary difficulty in finding house
accommodation for the amazing influx of population. Thou-
sands of houses were erected by greedy speculators, who studied,
not the convenience and health of those obliged to take them,
but how they might best secure 20 per cent per annum for their
outlay. Many more would have been built had not the prices
of land and materials been extravagantly enhanced. Bricks,
for example, rose from 30s. to £3 per thousand ; and a plot of
land on Gilliflower Hill, not quite an acre in extent, was sold
by auction for £4,000. No sooner was a row of dwellings
roofed and glazed, than the kitchen fires began to smoke and
the rentals to commence. The inquiry was not so much, " What
is the rent?" as, "Will you let me a house?" In one in-
stance, a butcher, who had been exhibiting from town to town

II] PARENTAGE 19

a " wonderful pig," in a common showman's caravan, ousted
the porkine tenant and stationing the vehicle in his garden at the
back of York Street, actually let it as a dwelling-place for
2s. 3d. per week.

In spite of all this, it must not be supposed that the
Nottingham of the present day resembles the Nottingham
of William Booth's boyhood. There were certainly in his
davs " chimnev-stalks," low^ and ding^^ habitations, wharf
buildings, and those other '' modern architectural embellish-
ments," against which the chronicler in 1850 brought his
sorrowful and quite ineffectual accusation. But one who
knew William Booth's family in the forties, and who was
brought up in Sneinton, visited the town with me in 19 13,
going over as much of the old ground as was possible, and
from beginning to end of our journey he expressed amaze-
ment at the obliterating eft'ects of recent development and
the pervasive change, infinitely for the worse, w^hich has
taken place quite lately in the town's aspect.

In the time of William Booth's boyhood the streets of
Nottingham ended where the Midland Station now stands.
The area between that and the river Trent was known as
the ^leadows, which in spring were blue with crocuses.
Paths led to Wilford Ferry, with Clifton Woods beyond.
The whole character of the scenery was tender and endear-
ing. To William Booth the fields, the woods, and the river
were full of pleasure, and to the end of his days he never
spoke of these scenes without an instant lapse into gentle-
ness and rev^erie.

Mary Hewitt describes the Meadows in her Autobiog-
raphy :

The greatest beauty in the landscape was one peculiar to our
meadows — our inimitable crocus-beds. It is impossible for
any who do not see them t-o conceive their extraordinary beauty,
shining out clear and bright in many places to the extent of
twenty acres, one entire bed of lilac flowers. Not a faint tint
of colouring, but as bright as the young green grass, with which
they so charmingly contrast. . . . There is another charm
attached to these flowers besides their beauty, and it is the
pleasure they afford to children. You see them flocking down,
as if to a fair, all day long, rich and poor carrying their little
baskets full, and their hands and pinafores full, gathering their

20 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

thousands, and leaving tens of thousands behind them; for
every day brings up a fresh supply.

Sneinton, which must be pronounced Snenton, was in the
days of William Booth's boyhood a suburb of Nottingham;
but with its windmills, wooded hills, generous views over
a gentle valley, and fields that were yet unblackened by
factory smoke, it preserved something of the character of a
hamlet. It was, however, a crowded place in certain parts ;
and the house to which Samuel Booth moved on his coming
into the district was closed in at the back by houses in the
occupation of stockingers. William Booth could very
easily escape to the fields and the woods; but in his home,
from the first years of his infancy, he was in close contact
with the noise and crowding of industrialism. Nevertheless,
it must be borne in mind, as we have already said, that both
the Sneinton and the Nottingham of those days were very
different from the vast w^ilderness of ugly houses and
dreary streets, of enormous factories and towering work-
shops, of roaring markets and incessant traffic, which now
characterize the bigger, uglier, although more flourishing,
modern town.

The house in which William Booth was born is still
standing, and is still known by its former designation, 12
Nottintone Place, Sneinton. It stands in a tree-shaded
cid-de-sac, one of a small terrace of red-bricked villas sloping
slowly up to a modest knoll crowned by a substantial house
w^hich blocks the end of the street. The houses of this
terrace are built back from the road, and are guarded by
tall railings rising from a low brick wall. No. 12 is one
of three houses which share a single gate in these railings,
the path diverging inside the w^alls to the three separate
front doors.

The interior of this dwelling deserves description. The
front door opens straight into the parlour, without passage
or lobby of any kind. An inner door, directly facing the
front door, admits to a small square hall in the centre of the
house, which is dimly lighted by a lantern in the roof in-
visible from below. A door in this tiny hall, opposite to
the parlour door, gives entrance to a fair-sized scullery-

WILLIAM BOOTH'S BIRTHPLACE
(Nottingham)

II] PARENTAGE 21

kitchen at the back ; a staircase on the left descends to
a dark basement and ascends to the two floors above.

On each floor there are two rooms, one in front and one
at the back, the whole house being of an exceedingly narrow
description. The parlour is some twelve feet by ten, and
the room in which it is most probable William Booth was
born is of like dimensions. From the outside, the house has
a somewhat dignified appearance, and not at first does one
realize that only three windows, one above another, belong
to the front door, which has the three similar windows of
the next house on its other side, after the manner of a
double-fronted house.

When I visited 12 Nottlntone Place in the early months
of 1913. m.aking bold to ask if I might see the interior of
No. 12, I found several pictures of General Booth hanging
on the parlour walls. I inquired of the occupant, who was
kind enough to let me see the house, whether she belonged
to the Salvation Army. *' Oh, yes," she replied with some
warmth; '' why, we owe everything to the Army! " Later
she told me her story, and I think that never was tale so
extraordinarily apt told in the birthplace of a great man.

Her husband had been a cashier for some years, she
related, in the house of a Newcastle firm. He fell ill, seri-
ously ill, and was unable to work. His employer kept his
place open for eight months, and then felt himself obliged
to make an end of the engagement. (He died, by the
way, not long ago leaving over £400,000.) The clerk, his
wife, and their six little children, in order to husband their
slender resources and also to get back to health as soon
as possible, removed to a village. The clerk grew slowly
better in health, but his efforts to find employment were
unavailing. Their money became exhausted. No one in
the place knew anything about them. They were too sen-
sitive to ask for help. They began to sell their furniture.
Bit by bit everything went, till the family possessed nothing
on this earth and no hope of anything beyond five pillows.
They starved. The eyes of the poor woman filled with tears as
she told me of that awful time. " I shall never forget those
days," she exclaimed; " never, never! We had just five pil-
lows, that was all, and our little ones were crying for bread."

22 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

One day the husband happened to pick up a copy of
perhaps the most impudent and unworthy journal published
in London. The copy contained a violent attack upon Gen-
eral Booth, charging him, among other things, with gross
hypocrisy, and asserting that he did not spend upon the
poor and needy the money he received for their assistance.
The clerk, struck by this article, spent his last two coppers
on two stamps, and wrote one letter to General Booth and
another to the proprietor of this paper, telling his story and
asking for help.

*' By return of post," said the woman, '* we got a letter
from General Booth — such a kind letter ! — saying it was
shameful that a man with references such as my husband's
should be out of work, and telling him that an officer would
call and inquire into his case the next day. We never
heard from the paper at all ! But next day an officer of
the Army called; and the Army took charge of my children,
they gave my husband work, and they carried me off to
one of their nursing homes, where they wouldn't let me do
a stroke of work, though I begged them to; they said that
I must be nursed back to health and strength. It \vas
wonderful. I never experienced such love in my life. Oh,
how kind they were ! Fancy, not letting me do any work,
not a stroke! Ah, I learnt much in that Home. And,
wasn't it a funny thing? — soon after they sent us to Not-
tingham this house fell vacant, and nothing would content
my husband, who had also been converted in the Army,
until we had taken it. So here we are, living by chance in
the very birthplace of the dear General, all Salvationists,
and my husband working heart and soul for the Army, —
we who must have died of starvation but for General
Booth ! "

In this house, then, William Booth, the greatest religious
force of modern days and one of the most picturesque and
heroic figures of the nineteenth century, was born on the
loth of April, 1829 — the birthday of Grotius and William
Hazlitt. Nineteen years afterwards, in connection with a
Chartist insurrection, the name of this day became a phrase,
'' almost the only one applied in England, in the manner of
our French neighbours, as a denomination for an event " ;

II] PARENTAGE 23

but happily, as the chronicle records, " the Tenth of April
remained only a memory of an apprehended danger judi-
ciously met and averted."

Two days after William Booth's birth, no time being lost
at that period to secure either immediate regeneration or a
Christian burial in case of death, the infant was baptized
at Sneinton Church. The entry in the parish register reads
as follows:

William, son of Samuel Booth, Nottintone Place, gentlernan,
and Alary his wife. Ceremony performed by George Wilkins,
D.D., Perpetual Curate, Vicar of St. Mary's; baptized 12th
April, 1829.

Samuel Booth is described by one who knew him as
'' tall and fine-looking." He was noticeable for dressing
in the fashion of the Quakers, wearing a drab-cloth suit, a
cut-away coat, and knee-breeches. Very little is known
about him, and what is known only tends to deepen the
mystery which appears to have surrounded him in life, even
to his own children. On meeting a Sneinton contemporary
in his extreme old age, the first greeting of General Booth
was a question concerning his father. " Tell me something,"
he said, taking his friend's two hands in his and holding them
vigorously in his own, " about my father ; I want to know
about him." From a paper he left behind, as we shall see,
it is quite evident that he had no clear notions in this matter.
He spoke often, and eloquently, of his mother; seldom of
his father, and then with a note of uncertainty — sometimes
with unwilling harshness, sometimes with a too evident
effort to discover a virtue. "Criminal instincts?" he
exclaimed to me once in a discussion on heredity ; " why,
we have all got them. I have got them. My father was
a Grab, a Get. He had been born in poverty. He deter-
mined to grow rich; and he did. He grew very rich, be-
cause he lived without God and simply worked for money;
and when he lost it all, his heart broke with it, and he died
miserably. I have inherited the Grab from him. I want
to get." And his arm shot forward, the hand clawing at
the air, to signify that he wanted to '' grab " souls and get
for them the treasure of eternal life. But there were other

24 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

occasions when he sought to show his father in a kinder
light, though his honesty always forced him at the last to
emphasize the avariciousness and worldliness which had
embittered his own childhood and brought his mother to
suffering and poverty.

From the papers and memoranda left behind by the son,
it would be quite possible to present two entirely different
portraits of this father, the one almost pleasing, the other
almost forbidding; and I think it is significant of William
Booth's character, an index indeed to his whole life, that
there should be this perplexing contradiction in his very
earliest memories, in his very latest judgments. For
William Booth was always struggling against the two anti-
thetical qualities of his nature — a loving, warm-hearted,
generous sympathy, and a rigorous, unsparing, religious
honesty. At one moment he hungered to see only the good
in human nature ; at the next, he was stung to a passionate
indignation by its badness — its deadness to God. In his
generous moods he would speak with a broad and embrac-
ing charity, a large and kindly tolerance of mankind; in
his moods of realism and intellectual honesty he could not
find words sharp and piercing enough for the evil of the
world.

It is also necessary to keep in mind, not only as touching
his memories of his father and mother, but also in many
other matters w^here his statements are under review, that
William Booth belonged to a period w^hen phrases \vere
adopted without analysis and language was often used with
an uncritical liberty. I have been over many of the re-
ligious magazines of the period, and studied numerous ser-
mons by preachers of some standing at that time, and in
numerous instances I have been struck, occasionally shocked,
by the intellectual poverty, the rhetorical bombast, and the
disagreeable sanctimoniousness w^hich characterized much
of the religious writing and preaching of that generation.
William Booth never used a cant phraseology; he was one
of the most honest, downright, and straightforward men that
ever lived ; but in his impatience to be at work saving the
lost and rescuing the sorrowful, he did permit himself to
use whatever language came quickest to his service, and

ii] PARENTAGE 25

seldom, I think, possibly never, set himself to acquire a nice
carefulness in his terms, a judicious and a critical handling
of the current phraseology.

" My father," he says in one place, " appears to have
been a man of considerable force of character — of a high
spirit, and a noble sense of truth and honour, combined with
a strong desire to get on in the world." In another place
he says that his father " knew no greater gain or end than
money . . . used to task my patience to the utmost capacity
by making me read to him . . . early part of his life spent
in making money, latter part in losing it ... a very un-
satisfactory life." And speaking of his own childhood he
says that he never received any help from his father, and
declares that his early days were " blighted and made more
or less wretched " by the ruinous condition of his father's
affairs.

When he said that his father possessed *' a noble sense
of truth and honour," he was no doubt thinking of how
Samuel Booth " became a bondsman, for a considerable
amount, for a tradesman, who afterwards became bank-
rupt, and left him to pay the money, which he did, every
farthing." '' The punctual discharge of this liability," says
William Booth, '' precipitated the breakdown of his fortune.
It was the last feather." In recalling this act, evidently at
a generous moment, he seized the opportunity to speak of
his father in such a manner as clouded out the sadder
qualities.

On the other hand, in moments of strict and courageous
honesty, eager to impress upon men the danger of a life
devoted to money-getting, he forgot the act which he could
praise, and thrust forward, chiefly as a warning to others,
only those miseries and deprivations which his father's
avarice had inflicted upon his mother, his sisters, and
himself.

One judges from these statements, when they are brought
into relation with the impression made upon other people
by those early days in the Booth family, that Samuel Booth
was a man of business, honest where the law was concerned,
just in his dealings, but with little conscience in his specu-
lations; a man rather silent, selfish, and unfriendly; in his

26 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTFI [chap.

later years not kind to children, not interested in his family;
dead to culture, indifferent to society, careless of religion.

William Booth's notes about his father suggest other
qualities. I find, for instance, these disjointed memoranda :

Incident to show his enterprise. The purpose of his life to
get money. Character. Perseverance. Enterprise. Schemes :
Enlisting militia in the large towns. Shipping crockery to Hol-
land. Advice to me against partnership. No scholar. His
schooling very short. Expelled the school because on some
occasion put his schoolmaster to shame by reckoning faster with
his head than he, the schoolmaster, did with his slate. This
capacity was remarkably developed. Religiously blind. Never
remember him in a place of worship. Insisted on our regular
attendance at church. No concern until his last illness.

Elsewhere he says :

He began his acquisitive career when but a child, and in
many ways, and for many years persevered in it, until he suc-
ceeded in getting together a considerable fortune, which he
invested mostly in tenement house property. By this he
reckoned on having done a good thing for his family. When I
was born he was looked upon as a gentleman and was spoken of
by that designation by the people about him. But about the
date of my birth, bad times set in, heavy losses followed one on
the heels of the other, making in early days a season of mortifi-
cation and misery.

There is very much the same difficulty when we come
to his remembrance of his mother. At one moment he
speaks of her in a manner that contradicts the memory of
one who remembers her in his childhood, and would almost
persuade one to think that Mary Booth had been to him
the most gracious, helpful, and perfect mother. In this case,
w^e think, the contradiction arises not only from William
Booth's natural anxiety, in his most generous moments, to
dwell upon only the good and beautiful side of his mother,
but from his seeing in the Mary Booth of later life the Mary
Booth of his tragic childhood.

It appears to me quite evident that William Booth's child-
hood was unhappy. I think he got no help at all from his
father, and very little encouragement from his mother.
Mary Booth appears to have been absorbed during the whole
of her married life in the anxieties and disasters of her
husband's speculations. She seems to have felt her poverty

II] PARENTAGE 2-]

acutely, and to have shrunk from the world in consequence.
She worked for her children, she nursed her husband in his
last illness, she did all she could to avert the final catastrophe
of ruin; but she w^as a sombre, sad, silent, and tragic figure
in that threatened home. William Booth says that he got no
help, as regards school work, in his home. He says that no
one told him anything about religion. He speaks of his
early days as '' a season of mortification and misery." He
makes it clear that his childhood was dark and unhappy.

But when he comes, later in life, to write of his mother,
it is as if he were describing an angel :

I had a good mother. So good she has ever appeared to me
that I have often said that all I know of her life seemed a strik-
ing contradiction of the doctrine of human depravity. In my
youth I fully accepted that doctrine, and I do not deny it now ;
but my patient, self-sacrificing mother always appeared to be
an exception to the rule. I loved my mother. From infancy to
manhood I lived in her. Home was not home to me without
her. I do not remember any single act of wilful disobedience
to her wishes. When my father died I was so passionately
attached to my mother that I can recollect that, deeply though
I felt his loss, my grief was all but forbidden by the thought
that it was not my mother who had been taken from me. And
yet one of the regrets that has followed me to the present hour
is that I did not sufficiently value the treasure while I possessed
it, and that I did not with sufficient tenderness and assiduity,
at the time, attempt the impossible task of repaying the im-
measurable debt I owed to that mother's love.

It is plain that the Mary Booth who overawed her daugh-
ter's only friend — as we shall see presently — who shrank
from the world, w^ho invited nobody to her house, who was
silent and frightening, and *' like a duchess," did not become
the Mary Booth of her son's glowing tribute until after the
death of her husband, when the end was reached of the
long and dreadful tension v/rought by impending calamity
which had ruined her married life. She was, doubtless,
kind to her children, but in their earliest years she was
clearly not a mother who watched over their education,
sought their innermost confidence, and deepened their sense
of relirion. " She had no time to attend to me," is one of
William Booth's confessions. Afterwards, no doubt, when

28 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

the crisis was over and the ruin had come, she came out
from the cloud, and shone upon their Hves with a beauty and
a warmth and a soHcitude which wakened her son's grati-
tude. But it is clear from the evidence, and important to
remember, that William Booth's earliest vears were dark
and sorrowful, and that in spite of a kind mother he went
hungry and thirsty for something that was never given.

Ann Booth's only girl friend was a Miss Sarah Butler,
now !Mrs. Osborne, who is still living at a great age — she
was two years older than General Booth — and happily for
herself, and this history, with all her faculties unimpaired.
She tells me that there was always a mystery about Samuel
Booth. Mystery, she says, pervaded the whole house. Ann
was sent to the best ladies' school in Nottingham, but she
made no friends there except Sarah Butler, and Sarah
Butler tells me that on no occasion when she visited the
family did she encounter another visitor. '' They gave me
the impression, even as a girl." she says, '' of a very proud
and very reserved family who felt their position acutely,
and wished to keep to themselves. Ann sometimes spoke
to me of her parents' former home near Colston Bassett,
giving me to understand from her mother's description of
it that it was a ' very beautiful place.' She never m.en-
tioned her father. I scarcely ever saw him, but I know that
he made no friends in the town."

Mary Booth, the mother of the evangeHst, is described
by Ann's friend as " a tall, proud woman — very proud and
austere." She was handsome, dignified, and splendid;
some one describing her as '' like a duchess." Her eyes are
said to have been very remarkable, and her portrait even
in old age confirms this memory. '' She had the most won-
derful eyes," says Ann's friend, '' the most piercing eyes I
ever saw. You could tell when she zcas looking at you!''
But she, too, appears to have been reserved and silent. " I
never remember her speaking to me all the years I knew her
and called at her house," says this one remaining friend of
the family. '' Very often when I went to call for Ann she
would open the door to me ; and she would stand aside for
me to enter, close the door, and then pointing to a chair in
the parlour, say, ' Sit down, my dear,' quite kindly but

11] PARENTAGE 29

without any friendliness or any attempt at intimacy, going
out to send Ann to me, and not returning to bid me good-bye.
She was not so great a mystery to me as Ann's father, but
I was always in dread of her, and felt that she was different
from other people. I am quite certain that Ann felt the
same thing about her. She never liked to talk about either
of them. There was something about the family which
puzzled me, and puzzles me still."

This effect produced upon the child's mind seems to have
had no other origin than in the reserve natural to many
people who come down in the world. The Booths had been
well off; they were now reduced to poverty; they desired
that as few people as possible should know of their con-
dition.

Ann Booth, according to the same authority, was a very
sweet, amiable, and gentle creature. But she was shy and
never made friends at school. She took after her mother
and was good-looking. She always had a smile in her eyes,
and spoke in a gentle voice, rather timorously. She adored
her brother William, as did the other sisters, and in his
youth exercised some control over him, but she was not
in any way a favourite sister. That William Booth returned
this love of his sisters, and never forgot their devotion, is
attested by the fact that on calling to see Mrs. Osborne in
his old age he quite begged her to go and see his married
sister, Mrs. Newell, making this request almost the object
of his visit, saying that it was the one favour he had to ask
her. ** She is lonely," he said; "she is sometimes sad; it
will be a great kindness if you go and see her." It is inter-
esting to know that at one time people in the neighbourhood
thought that William Booth would marry a sister of Sarah
Butler, who shared his religious enthusiasms, was some-
times consulted by him, and to whom he showed more atten-
tion than was his custom to the other devotees who attended
his earliest meetings.

At the back of the house in Nottintone Place, as we have
already said, and pressing close up to the backyard, were
dwellings occupied by framework knitters. These houses
are standing at the present day, and throughout the modern
streets of Sneinton and Nottingham similar houses are still

-;o THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

J

to be seen. They are two-storied, red-bricked dwelling
houses, topped by a working story which gives them their
peculiar character and makes them easily recognizable. In-
stead of the ordinary square or oblong windows of the two
lower floors, the windows of this upper story are of greater
breadth than height, and are usually glazed with more or
less opaque glass. Behind these window^s William Booth
would have seen from his earliest years the dim spectral
figures of stockingers at their frames and have heard all
day long the noise of the machines — Jwckety — Jiockefx —
sJiee, hockcty — Jwckety — shce. On one side of his
house were the decent, pleasant, and somewhat pretentious
villas of a suburban terrace — very quiet, sleepy, uneventful ;
at the back, those dismal, noisy tenements of the workers,
who so often starved and so frequently filled the streets with
the clamour of incipient revolution. It \vas indeed a case in
this house of a " Queen Anne front and a Mary Ann back."

\\^hen the family lost money, they moved to a broader
street but a poorer neighbourhood. Opposite to the new
home in Sneinton Road, the site of which is now occupied
by a picture palace, was a smallware shop, kept by a remark-
able old man called Grandfather Page, and on one side of
this shop was a narrow entry leading to a backyard which
contained a slaughter-house. At every turn there were
dingy habitations occupied by weavers ; trafiic passed con-
tinually to and from the market-place; numerous public-
houses hung their signs over the uneven pavements ; in
every way it was a move for the worse, another come-
down in the world.

Some way up this road, and not far from Nottintone
Place, was The Paul Pry Inn, which still swings its sign,
bearing the legend / Jwpe I don't intrude . A young lover,
after parting from his sweetheart late one night, was in
so fervorous a mood of happiness that soon after passing this
inn, all shuttered and asleep, he threw his stick into the
air and accidentally broke one of the upper windows in the
private house next door — the noise causing a momentary
panic. His apologies, however, were accepted, and his
excuse was considered more than adequate ; but the story
spread throughout the district and caused a good deal of

ii] PARENTAGE 31

amusement at the cost of emotionalism. Another and more
tragic incident occurred close to the second house of William
Booth. A number of boys were playing in the streets with
oyster shells, and one of them flinging a shell harder than he
intended struck a man in the face, cutting out his right eye.

William Booth, from the very first, was a ringleader and
a captain among his fellows. " Wilful Will " was his nick-
name, and a very old lady, who perfectly remembers him
at this time, said to me wath considerable decision, '' Billy
was always rather forward — not aggressive, not violent,
you understand, but forward ; — yes, Billy was a forward
lad." He was noticeable in appearance by reason of his
long legs and his long nose. His friends spoke of his nose
as " the Wellington." In the game of soldiers, a game
which he played in his childhood more than any other, he
was usually '' the captain " — an omen, perhaps, of his after
life. In spite of physical delicacy — he was outgrowing his
strength — he appears to have been a leader in games and
a boy of remarkable spirit.

Grandfather Page, who kept the smallware shop in
Sneinton Road, remembered Samuel Booth striding into
his premises one day demanding a cane. " I'm going," he
announced, " to give my son the best hiding he ever had in
his life." Grandfather Page, who exercised a wonderful
religious influence in the neighbourhood, and who seems to
have been a most amiable and gracious person, replied to
this announcement : '' Mr. Booth, you must not strike your
son while you are in this temper. You are in no fit mood to
punish a child. You must wait till your anger is gone."
Samuel Booth bridled his rage, returned to his house, and
said to William, '' You may go and thank old Mr. Page
for saving you from a good hiding." What the offence of
William had been we do not know; but one perceives that
he had spirit enough to aggravate and perhaps to withstand
a father who inspired almost everybody with a sense of
awe and w^ho was choleric in his bouts of rheumatism.

It is interesting to know that the old man who saved
William Booth from a flogging, and whose influence on his
life is nowhere recorded, had already in those days started
a system of religious services in the slums. This Mr. Page

2,2 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

had been a rich man, a racing man, and a lover of wrestHng.
On his conversion he surrendered his business to his sons,
and Hved with great simpHcity, devoting all his time to
religious work. But, to the surprise of every one, quite late
in life he fell in love with a young girl in his Sunday school
and married her. In order to support the new family that
came to him, the old man took a humble smallware shop
in Sneinton, and there made his home. He had a garden
far away from the house, being a great lover of flowers, and
in this garden was a summer-house where he made tea for
himself and sat meditating on religion. Later in life one of
his rich sons by the first marriage sent a carriage to the
smallware shop every afternoon, and the old man would
drive up to his garden. When he became blind a rope was
slung across the garden path, and he would walk to and fro
among the flowers he could no longer see, singing hymns,
and guiding himself by a sliding hand-support on the rope.
He used to say, '' I have been walking by faith for over
forty years, and have not known what it is to have a gloomy
hour." He worked among '' the neglected, the sick, and
the sorrowful," started a ragged school in the slums, and
prayer-meetings in the cottages of the poor. During race-
meetings he stood at the roadside distributing tracts.

William Booth, although he makes no mention of
Grandfather Page, was perhaps influenced by that gentle
and unselfish life, for the old man was regarded as a charac-
ter, and lived exactly opposite the Booths' house in Sneinton
Road. When William Booth crossed the road to thank
this old man for saving him from chastisement, there was
probably a conversation, or a few words, which may have
left some impression. In any case it is certain that William
Booth must often have heard in boyhood of the strange
work which Grandfather Page was doing so effectually in
the slums of Nottingham.

He played hockey in the streets with a wooden nog, much
to the annoyance of the village constable, who was a cobbler ;
he entered into the fun of Plough Mondays, when men
dressed up in ox-skins with horns on their heads went about
the town thrusting their faces into doorways and windows

n] PARENTAGE 33

demanding money — very much after the fashion of
]\Iussulmen during the feast of Mohurrum. Later he took
to reading the poetry of Kirke White, to devouring three-
vohtme novels, and to fishing — some one remembering how
he once exploded with rage at the breaking of his rod. He
may have seen the prize-fighter Bendigo — who was the
brother of a well-known optician in the town — walking
about the streets ; a son of Grandfather Page, who once
spoke to Bendigo when the mighty man was fishing in the
Trent, became in consequence a hero among his mates.
One may be quite certain that '' Wilful Will " shared in all
the games and excitements of Sneinton boys, and that he
spent as much time as any of them in the market, in the
fields, and on the riverside, having little love for the home
which was dark with misery and oppressive with the sense
of ruin. His ardent, passionate, and impulsive nature
made him a leader among his companions, and looking
back on those days, when there was no religious in-
fluence on his character, no restraining hand upon his
tendencies, and no attempt of any kind to shape him
nobly, he exclaimed, '' I have often wondered I did not go
straight to hell."

But his faults were evidently of no very serious nature,
for he was able to declare with a good conscience, " I have
heard my mother say that I never caused her an hour's real
anxiety in her life." It would seem that his chief depriva-
tion lay in the absence from his childhood of any high and
gracious influence, with the consequent danger that he might
drift into a dull and useless manhood, if not into actual
wickedness.

Here was a child of fiery temper and impetuous will grow-
ing up without definite guidance, forming his own opinions
from the chaos of ideas which presented themselves without
explanation to his mind, seeking adventure with the most
spirited boys of his acquaintance, taking the lead in every
game and every device for killing time which these com-
panions could hit upon, and hating more than anything else
on earth the black, unmoving cloud that darkened the dul-
ness of his home. What could come of such a childhood?

34 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.ii]

What could the Nottingham of that epoch make of this
young citizen? One does not see the necessity for goinf^
*' straight to hell " ; but very devious, obscure, and improb-
able at present is the path to glory.

CHAPTER III

WHICH TELLS OF A DIFFICULT ROAD LEADING UP
TO A YOUTHFUL CONVERSION

.1838-1844

'' Ce qu'on dit de soi," says Renan, '' est toujours poesie/*
He would have us believe that a man only writes of " such
things" — his childhood and the least details of his private
life — in order to transmit to others his theory of the uni-
verse. He applauds Goethe for having chosen as the title
of his memoirs, Verite et Pocsie; for, according to his thesis,
autobiography, like biography, must of necessity partake of
both truth and imagination.

William Booth, a less reflective and infinitely more active
man than Renan, had no ambition to write the story of his
life. He was entirely innocent of that miserable conceit —
mesquine vanite — of which Renan complains. He was
urged by others at the extremity of his age to set his mem-
ories on paper, and with much annoyance and a great deal of
grunting half-humorous disapproval, the old. worn, weary,
and near-blind prophet, bowed down by the business of
the world, essayed this most difficult task- — a task only
possible of success, perhaps, in the case of an exact thinker,
like Stuart Alill or Herbert Spencer, or a morbid and
brilliant egoist, like Rousseau.

The result is deplorable, more deplorable even than " the
dim, disastrous details " contained in the famous Paper Bags
of Professor Teufelsdrockh. Confusion is everywhere, and
not only the confusion justly attributable to the fact that
these attempts at autobiography had been used by other
people before they came into the hands of the present writer.
One encounters at the outset a scornful indifference to
chronology; unbridgeable voids of silence at those very
junctures where meticulous narrative is essential; a welter
of propagandist eloquence and octogenarian reflection where

35

36 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

a single incident or one clear, natural phrase would be in-
valuable ; and throughout this dismembered and amorphous
scrap-book of memory there is a spirit of revolt, the writer
struggling to escape from himself to the work that was
more to him than life.

Unfortunatelv, because he could not think himself out of
the language of religious fervour, he exemplifies the truth
of Renan's epigram, that what a man says of himself is
always poetry. In his case there was no patient stooping
of the ear to catch from the deepest fathoms of his heart
trembling vibrations from the sea-buried city of his child-
hood — the bells of those faery churches still calling to wor-
ship the faithful who could no longer hear them. Rather
was he a much busied man of affairs, practical and im.pa-
tient, hard-headed and beset with a thousand troubles, who in
a hurried moment seized upon his past with a violence which
at once scared and scattered delicate memories to the four
winds of heaven, and began at once to expound his theory
of the universe from the cradle to the satchel, and from the
satchel to the shop-counter.

It would seem, though I can find no confirmation else-
where, that during William Booth's infancy the family re-
moved for a time to Bleasby, where Samuel Booth appar-
ently attempted to make money at '' fancy farming."
William Booth says that he learned his letters at the village
school, and was presently sent to a boarding-school at South-
well, the favourite residence of his namesake the fifty-first
Archbishop of York. At six years of age the family re-
turned to Nottingham, and the boy, who was encouraged to
believe that he had a gentleman's prospect before him, was
sent to a good school kept by a ^Ir. Biddulph. Ann, it will
be remembered, was learning to be a young lady at the best
ladies' school in Nottingham.

\\^illiam Booth has nothing good to say of Biddulph's
School. *' No stimulus," is his laconic judgment. But his
father had determined that he should be a gentleman ;
Biddulph's School was the select academy of Nottingham,
and to Biddulph's School therefore he had to go. He com-
plains, " y\x. Biddulph never fairly woke up my ambition
to learn until the year before leaving." He records a break-

in] A YOUTHFUL CONVERSION 37

down in his health with the explanation, *' school hours too
long."

He remembers signing the pledge at six or seven years
of age. He kept it — *' no teetotal friend near me " — until
he was thirteen, when his mother, who believed, in common
with nearly everybody else who passed at that time for a
sensible person, in the health-giving virtue of beer, insisted
upon her delicate son taking alcohol as '' medicine."

During his schooldays there was a serious crisis in his
father's affairs. Mrs. Booth had to take a journey to
Derby and Ashbourne to see some mysterious gentleman,
probably to gain assistance for her husband. She took
William on this journey; and he writes of that event:
" Walk to Ashbourne. Coach gone. Walk of eleven miles.
Last mile an hour. Gentleman not to be moved." A
dismal journey for a young child, the memory ineffaceable
at eighty years.

There was no religious atmosphere in his home at this
time, but the children were sent on Sunday to the parish
church of Sneinton. William Booth was not attracted by
the services ; they gave him little notion of religion and its
relation to the soul. But he remembers the clergyman,
who was something of a character, and perhaps, in the
social sense of the word, the only gentleman in the neigh-
bourhood.

Parsoti Wyatt was a tall, dark-haired, solemn-visaged,
ruminative man, who jerked his head as he walked, and
moved about his parish, chin to breast, lost in remote
reflection. He was thought to be a Puseyite, and there was
opposition in the parish to his innovations. But a certain
Wesleyan minister remembers him as a sincere and a good
man, one who was friendly with the dissenters of his day,
and a clergyman who truly and earnestly sought to do his
duty. William Booth himself says that this ^Ir. AVyatt
was " no doubt a good man according to his light," adding,
however, the characteristic judgment :

But his rueful countenance and icy manner all seemed to say
that his performances meant — "Do as I advise, or not; be
what the prayers have asked that you miq-ht be, or not : do
what the Scriptures have said, or not — it does not matter very

S8 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

0

much whether you comply with these requirements or not."
He may have felt a great deal more than this, but it did not
make any very great impression upon my boyish mind, and, so
far as 1 can remember, I do not think that the bulk of the con-
gregation were ever carried very much further by what he said.

It is of course extremely doubtful whether the boy felt
any more need for religious instruction than the schoolboy
of Anatole France who invented sins in order to satisfy his
confessor: — '' The first difficulty is to find them. You may
perhaps believe me when I tell you that, when I was ten, I
did not possess the gift of self-analysis in a sufficiently
marked degree to enable me to make a thorough examina-
tion of my inner consciousness." William Booth was no
doubt perfectly satisfied wath the ministrations of Parson
Wyatt at the time, using the church railings for thrusting
his head through — the game consisting in getting it back
again — playing in the churchyard, looking about him
during the services, and only voting it a considerable bore
that he had to attend these religious services at all. It
was not, perhaps, until much later in his life that he became
aware of Parson Wyatt' s deficiencies.

But he did become aware, even as a child, of something
lacking in his own life. His first religious impressions came
from one of his cousins, a ^Methodist named Gregory, who
was a humble shoemaker. William Booth was struck by
this man's " separate and spiritual life." On one occasion
Gregory said to him, '* Willie Booth, do you know that re-
ligion is something that comes to you from outside of you ? "
This idea haunted the boy, and repeating it later on to his
minister, he was told that he would soon be teaching in
the Sunday school ! He remembers, too, that a great im-
pression was made upon his mind by the singing in Sunday
school of the hymn, Here we suffer grief and pain; the idea
oppressed him and gave a new turn to his thoughts. His
cousin's persistent religiousness made him later on " a sort
of teacher " ; and this, he says, w^as '' an altogether new in-
fluence." But he complains, even after this beginning, that
no one ever spoke to him about the spiritual life. " I do
not remember," he says, " a direct word about my soul —
the necessity and possibility of my being converted — or of

m] A YOUTHFUL CONVERSION 39

encouragement being spoken to me up to the date of my
conversion, and very few afterwards."

His father, he says, was " religiously blind " ; his mother's
moral instruction in those years was, " Be good, William,
and all will be well." Parson Wyatt never spoke a direct
word to him ; no one, not even Cousin Gregory in the Sun-
day school, ever attempted to get at the innermost privacy
of his soul. The first faint beginning of that revolution
in his personality which was to have so w^ide and wonderful
an effect for mankind was simply a feeling in his childish
consciousness that Cousin Gregory lived a separate and
spiritual life. He does not go back for his first religious im-
pressions to a prayer learned at his mother's knee, but to an
indefinable, incommunicable reverence in his mind arising
from contact with a humble shoemaker who, though he said
little to the boy in a personal or direct way, conveyed a
feeling to the child's soul of respect for the spiritual life.
" Religion is something that comes to you from outside of
you."

This feeling, however, w^as destined to fade; and the
hymn and its tune. Here we siiifer grief and pain, ceased to
haunt his mind. He says he grew " utterly regardless with
respect to religion," that he " altogether settled down in the
uttermost indifference," that thoughtlessness would be the
best term to describe his state at that time. But he avers
that he can remember " an inward dissatisfaction with his
condition." " My heart," he says, " was a blank."

He acknowledges that he was wilful, headstrong, passion-
ate. He was allowed to have his own way. Mischief he
underlines in the disjecta membra of his reminiscences as
the spirit of his boyhood. He would do anything for fun.
Among his playfellows he was a lord of misrule. Never-
theless this devotion to mischief of every kind went hand
in hand with a love of reading. He was affected by poetry
— the Night Thoughts of Young, and the poems of Kirke
White. He also read many novels, as we have already said,
and he gives us a hint that his favourite authors were
Walter Scott and Fenimore Cooper. He complains of that
period, " There was no one to direct me." He considered
on reflection that he was saved from ruin in boyhood by the

40 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

financial sorrows of his family. *' Doubtless the trials of
my early days caused by my father's failing fortunes had a
beneficial effect on my character. I felt them most keenly;
it is not too much to say that they embittered the early years
of my boyish life." Always there is the shadow of the
father on his childhood. He might play mischievously in
the churchyard, go gratefully to fish in the Trent, bury him-
self in poetry and novels, dream of greatness in manhood —
for he was decidedly ambitious — but always his thoughts,
his hopes, his headstrong audacity, and his cheerful games
were darkened by the shadow^ of that silent and unlovable
father going steadily down to ruin.

A strange incident occurred while he w^as still at school.
A lady and gentleman passing William Booth while he
played in the streets would turn so often to look at him that
at last he became aware of their interest. He would look
up at them as they appeared, and watch them as they passed
on, wondering what it was that caused them to regard him
so affectionately. One day they stopped and spoke to him,
the gentleman asking how he was getting on at school. The
lady then made it clear why they were interested in him.
Her eyes filled with tears, as she told the boy that he greatly
resembled their son whom they had lost by death.

After this a friendship sprang up between the old people
and the boy. They asked him to their house, treated him
with the greatest kindness, and w^ould even have adopted
him. They were Wesleyans, and, with his parents' permis-
sion, occasionally took him to chapel. This was his first
introduction to Methodism. " My religious training," he
says, '' was nil " ; and he adds that attendance at this chapel
made some slight impressions upon him, but nothing more.

Then came an event that did away with every thought
about religion. The calling in of a mortgage precipitated
his father's ruin. The family was plunged into poverty.
'' The purpose of making me a gentleman," says William
Booth, '' was defeated." He was taken away from school
and sent into business. He was thirteen years of age.

To the end of his days William Booth could seldom bring
himself to speak freely of his first acquaintance with business
life. There is no doubt that the memory was a sad one.

HiJ A YOUTHFUL CONVERSION 41

He shunned it. In all his writings I can find no direct
reference to the nature of this employment. He speaks
always of " a business," or of " a trade," never once can
he force himself to say outright that the business to which
his father apprenticed him was a pawnbroker's. And yet
there cannot be any doubt at all that it was the associations
of this business which had a determining effect upon his
after life. He became deeply acquainted with the misery
of other people. There had been misery enough in his own
childhood, but it was a form of misery which isolated him
from the world. He felt his position, and knew that his
parents endeavoured to hide their poverty from their neigh-
bours, as though all the neighbours were respectable and
prosperous, they alone poor and struggling. But now he
learned that many other people were fighting against pov-
erty, and grew to know that suffering and sorrow, depriva-
tion and shame, positive penury and positive want, drag their
net in a wide sea of human misery.

Furthermore, it is also certain that the subsequent shame
which he felt for his work deepened in his soul a longing
for a life more beautiful and more satisfying, embittering
his bitterness still further, agitating his unrest still more
violentlv, and driving: him more and more outwards from
himself, outwards from that centre of his consciousness
where all was dark, unhappy, and without peace.

Why did his father choose this particular business ? " Be-
cause," says William Booth, " he knew no greater gain or
end than money."

The boy had been trained to regard himself as a gentle-
man's son. He had been told that his father intended to
make a gentleman of him. He was adored by his sisters.
He was the leader of his playfellows. He had been sent
to a good school. He was in every way something of a hero.
And now, at the age of thirteen, he was told that he must
go and work for his living, and learned that he was to
serve in a small pawnbroker's shop situated in the poorest
part of Nottingham.

His father had a talk with him. He held forth to the
boy the allurements of money. He told him it w^as a busi-
ness that paid well, a business by which fortunes were not

42 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

only easily but quickly made. He counselled his son to
give all his attention to the work, and to keep ever before
him the prospect of setting up for himself, avoiding part-
nerships.

William Booth was only a boy. The business promised
freedom from school. He liked the idea of earning money.
" I went into it." he says, '' with a will." Then\e adds
the characteristic notes: "My after hatred of the trade.
A proper estimate of the business. The use and abuse of
it." He also remarks that this work " continued my asso-
ciation with the poorest and lowest."

He was too honest a man not to perceive that pawn-
brokery has a good side — a side, indeed, which is of dis-
tinct benefit to the poor. His full dislike of the trade came
to him after his actual experience of the business. He him-
self had enormously developed when he perceived the dead-
ening effect it is apt to exercise on the highest sympathies of
human nature. He disliked it, there is no doubt, more in his
old age than in his youth ; in his youth it was an interruption
of his spiritual life, a disagreeable, dislikable employment,
but not a thing of loathing or disgust.

At this time he made companionships whose influence,
he savs, was anvthing^ but beneficial. '' I went downhill
morally, and the consequences might have been serious, if
not eternally disastrous, but that the hand of God was on
me in a very remarkable manner." One maist bear in mind
that this memory was written many years afterwards, and
one may be forgiven the doubt if the boy of thirteen had
really gone very far down the hill that leads to moral dis-
aster. It is more probable that the phrase means careless-
ness in ideas, frivolity in conduct, and indifference to
religion.

He had not been a year in this shop when he was
hurriedly summoned from his bed one night and told to
come quickly, for his father was dying. This was in
September, 1842. Samuel Booth had manifested spiritual
concern in this last illness, chiefly through the persistent
appeals of '' Cousin Grego^\^" He was at last willing, he
at last had time, to attend to religion. '' Very sincerely,"

in] A YOUTHFUL CONVERSION 43

the son believed, *' he turned his heart away from the world
that he thought had used him so badly."

The Sacrament was administered. The group round the
bed sang Rock of Ages. Samuel Booth committed his wife
and children to the care of God, and died in peace. " So
ended," wrote his son, '' his career — devoted to money-
getting." It was a death-bed repentance. '' Though this
skin-of-the-teeth sort of business of getting to heaven is to
be in no ways recommended, yet because he impressed me
and all else who knew him as such a real honest-hearted
man according to his light, and seeing that the transaction
was in keeping with his character, and therefore a reality,
it is a ground of hope concerning my meeting him again
where fortunes made shall be lost no more."

He says in another place, as we recorded before, " Deeply
though I felt his loss, my grief was all but forbidden by the
thought that it was not my mother who had been taken
from me."

No doubt the death of his father made a deeper impres-
sion upon his young mind than he remembered in his old
age. One does not think that any child, but particularly
a child of this temperament, could be called suddenly at
night to the death-bed of his father, could witness and share
in the spontaneous service at the bedside, and finally be-
hold, in the wavering and ghostly candle-light, the solemn
almost terrifying mystery of death, w^ithout thinking of his
own soul and the life beyond death as it touched him in his
innermost thought.

Certain it is that with no other change in his circum-
stances, with no help or guidance from any other creature,
William Booth began from this time to be more interested
in religion. He had almost parted company with the Church
of England, and was now a frequent attendant at Wesley
Chapel. He formed more reasonable friendships. His life
began to be coloured by the religion of other people.
Among these friends was one who outlived him, a Mr. New-
bold, who remembers William Booth, and recalls how he
met him one day, '' near to Broad Street," and asked him
to become a member of " Brother Carey's Class." William

44 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

Booth consented, and joined this class in the Chapel, which
was '' led," as the Wesleyans say, by a Mr. Henry Carey —
a very good and upright man of considerable position, whose
wife took some share in his ministrations.

In the notes which he left behind him of this period, after
remarking that he got nothing but impressions from the
services in Wesley Chapel, and making two strokes after the
full stop as if to indicate an emphatic termination to this
part of the story, he sets down the name, Isaac Marsden.
But nowhere else in these ricordi does he again mention the
name, and one would be left to conjecture whether Isaac
Marsden definitely began the new chapter in his life, or was
only a ghost haunting the dim horizon of his oblivious past,
but for a reference to the matter in a book called Isaac
Marsden of Doncaster, where the author quotes William
Booth as saying:

I shall never forget the words I first heard from Mr. Isaac
^larsden. I was walking out one evening with two friends at
Nottingham, when I was fourteen years of age. Mr. Marsden
was conducting special services at a Wesleyan Chapel, and at
that time no one could hear him who had any belief in the great
truths of the Bible without being deeply impressed and stimu-
lated.

We entered the Chapel late — in the dusk. I could hardly
see the speaker; but just at that moment he was saying, ''A
soul dies every minute.'' ... I have little doubt that, but for
my two friends, I should have stayed that very night and given
my heart to God.

Inquiry leads one to surmise that Isaac Marsden gave to
William Booth his great intelligent notion of a vital religion.
It is credible that Isaac Marsden's influence not only led to
the conversion of William Booth, but sowed in the boy's
mind the seed which was destined to grow into a great tree
overspreading the whole world. For Isaac Marsden was
half a John ^^^esley and half a General Booth.

He is described to me by one who remembers him as a
somewhat eccentric lay preacher whose head and mouth gave
him a noticeable likeness to John Bright. He was *' very
strong mentally, a great saver of souls. A man of original-
ity and power from the first; rough and wild before his con-

ni] A YOUTHFUL CONVERSION 45

version, a very lion in courageous faith ever after.'* Mr.
Isaac Page has written an account of Marsden :

He preached on Sunday when I heard him, and followed up
the work during the week. Each night an old-fashioned revival
service was held — a fervid sermon, strong appeals, a rousing
prayer-meeting, many penitents, and shouts of praise to God.
In those days nothing was said about closing the meetings at
nine o'clock. They continued as long as there were souls seek-
ing salvation, sometimes till a very late hour. Not infre-
quently groups of happy people proceeded homewards at mid-
night, making the stillness lively with their songs of praise.

He used to hold an early Sunday morning prayer-meet-
ing, says Mr. Page, '' and if, as he returned, he saw a servant
girl washing the door-steps, he would speak a word or two,
and then dow^n on his knees in the street to pray for her
salvation."

He would speak to men in his walks, or in houses or shops
where he called, in -such fashion that they were fain to go and
hear him preach. One day, as he went along the street, he saw
a woman hanging out -clothes. His eyes glanced along the line
of garments, and he said, " I say, missus, if your heart is not
washed cleaner than those clothes, you'll never get to heaven."

He was devoted to children, and carried sweets in his
pockets when he went to give a Sunday school address. He
would teach them a little prayer to say daily : " Lord, make
me good, and keep me good ; and bless Isaac Marsden."

Such a man must have had some fascination for William
Booth. Nevertheless, when he came to look back on those
far-off days, William Booth could recall no penetrating word
addressed to his soul, no arresting hand laid upon his throb-
bing pulses. He could see nothing of human a,s:ency in the
new birth which was then shaping in his soul. One thinks,
however, that a more rigorous examination of his memiory,
with the name of Isaac Marsden as a clue, might have led at
least to some modification of this opinion.

" Although the change that came over me was sudden,"
he says, " it was nevertheless reached by stages. There was
the realized superiority of the religious life over the purely
w^orldly form of existence which I had lived so long." (The

46 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

reader will remember with a kindly smile that the worldly
form of existence had extended to fourteen completed years
of troubled childhood.) "Although my heart was very
largely unaffected by the form of service in which I joined,
my mind was nevertheless convinced of the rightness, and
dignity, and profitableness of the service of God that was set
before my eyes. I realized its satisfying nature, and, conse-
quently, I gradually became convinced of its superiority, and,
more than this, a hunger sprang up for its realisation.
Whatever the circumstances that may have led to my con-
version, that conversion was a definite and decisive event in
my history, I was utterly without any experience of
religion; in fact, wholly given up to a life of self-indul-
gence."

The reader will remember the caution I ventured to ex-
press in the last chapter concerning William Booth's mem-
ories of the past and also concerning his phraseology. It is
surely misuse of language to speak of his boyhood as " a life
of self-indulgence," and to say that he was living a " purely
worldly form of existence." This is self-evident. And it
is also very probable that his other recollections of this im-
portant period of his life are saturated with the Aberglaiihe
of later years. One cannot think that a boy between thir-
teen and fourteen years of age w^as '' convinced of the right-
ness, and dignity, and profitableness of the service of God,"
or that he *' realised its satisfying nature, and consequently
. . . became convinced of its superiority." Boys do not
argue. This is the language of the old man, the old man
so used to that language of his maturity that he cannot quite
think himself back into the moods of his childhood, moods
destitute of a vocabulary.

It is plain that nothing more took place at this time in
the boy's mind than a gradual pressure of its former un-
happiness. He was unhappy, and he knew that he was
unhappy. In chapel and in class he heard about the religious
life which is said to take away unhappiness. He desired
that life, because he was unhappy. He says, and there is
no doubt a profound truth in the rememl^rance, " I wanted
to be right with God. I wanted to be right in myself. I

Ill] A YOUTHFUL COXVERSIOX 47

wanted a life spent in putting other people right." Yes;
but all this was cloudlike, inexpressible, and vague in the
boy's soul.

Almost immediately he adds : " How I came to this
notion of religion, when I saw so little of its character mani-
fested around me, sometimes puzzles me." It was of course
— save only the humanitarian impulse which probably came
later — a not uncommon experience of childhood. Chil-
dren, as well as adults, are " tortured by divine things."
They have a consciousness of unrest, a longing for satis-
faction, a feeling towards and a longing after some myste-
rious beautiful and rapturous embrace which they feel is
coming towards them from the invisible kingdom of dreams.
They are inarticulate, they cannot express what they feel,
and their longing is confused by a thousand influences from
fairy-tale, legend, and belief in magic and witchcraft; but
it is there, torturing their souls, a disbelief in the material
world, a hatred of all dulness and mechanical exercise, a
longing for romance, a repetition of the miracle.

One thing is certain. Throughout his childhood William
Booth was overshadowed by a feeling of the nearness of
God. He never knew the isolation of even a transitory
atheism. A\'hether he was mischievous or good, whether
he was *' worldly " or unselfish, he believed in God. He
was by no means in love with this faith, the sense of God
by no means contributed to his happiness. But he was
perfectly certain of God's existence. He speaks of " that
instinctive belief in God which, in common with my fellow-
creatures, I had brought into the world with me." Op-
pressed by this faith, and with no guidance from any one,
the boy whose whole childhood had been darkened and em-
bittered, the boy whose nature was passionate, headstrong,
impulsive, and charged with the spirit of leadership, came
at last to long for escape from himself, determined to make
a fight for his own peace of mind.

While this pressure of unhappiness and this sense of
God's reality were deepening in his soul, he was devoting
himself with natural zeal to the interests of his employer.
He was quick, he was thorough, he was energetic, he was

48 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

orderly and trustworthy. There was no thought in his
mind of forsaking this business. He was ambitious, and
he meant to get on in the world. Side by side in his
soul were these two equal forces — one driving him to
religious safety, the other urging him to material prosperity.
Nothing of the mystic showed in his nature. No violent
change in personality was manifest in these early stirrings
of his spirit.

Soon after the father's death Mary Booth was obliged
to leave the humble house in Sneinton Road. She was
robbed right and left, says her son, by those who had the
handling of her husband's ruined estate. It became neces-
sary not only for her to leave the house in Sneinton Road,
but to earn money for her children. She took a very small
shop in one of the poor quarters of Nottingham.

A strange incident, of which William Booth never heard,
occurred at this time. Opposite to the house in Sneinton
Road, as we have said, w'as the smallware shop of Grand-
father Page, and one of his sons, Isaac, now a retired \\'es-
leyan minister, was a little boy when ^Irs. Booth and her
children moved from the neighbourhood. He said to me,
" The first knowledge I had of the Booths' removal cam.e iv
an odd way. I woke up one morning, went to the windo\^
of my bedroom, and looked out. I noticed something mov-
ing against the upper window of the house opposite, and
calling my brother we both saw quite distinctly that a big
white bird, like a swan or a stork, was beating its wings
against the glass, jumping up and down as though strug-
gling to get out. Then we observed that the curtains of
all the other windo\vs had gone, and knew that the house
was empty. This was our first knowledge that the Booths
had gone. And we never solved the mystery of the white
bird at the window^" This is one of those weird and grate-
fully mysterious stories of which no wise man v.'ill ask an
explanation. But Mr. Page refuses to see in it a super-
natural significance. *' I have no doubt," he says, " that
some travelling showman had taken advantage of the empty
house to place the creature there for the night." Fortu-
nately, no child will be satisfied by this interpretation of a
mystery.

Ill] A YOUTHFUL CONVERSION 49

William Booth's wages as an apprentice were so meagre
that he could do little to help his mother. Her establish-
ment was a smallware shop, where she sold toys, needles,
tape, cotton, and similar necessities of a good housewife —
a very humble business with few customers and small profits.
It is significant that even in these altered circumstances Ann
Booth's friend, Sarah Butler, a young lady of some social
distinction, still remained a visitor to the family, and that
the first friends of William Booth were young men of posi-
tion who had known him in the days of Nottintone Place.
The family still remained '' proud and austere," as Sarah
Butler says; but there was evidently a deeper warmth and
an entirely new feeling of freedom in the spirit of the house-
hold. Ruin had come; a definite poverty had fallen; but
the shadow of the embittered man had lifted and the family
drew closer together.

In this same year, 1842, there was great excitement
in Nottingham over a Parliamentary election. Mr. John
Walter, of The Times, was opposed by a Radical reformer
from Birmingham, Mr. Sturge. Feargus O'Connor de-
scended upon the town, and the scenes in the street, the ora-
tory of the hustings, the procession of rival clubs, and the
language of the newspapers were as picturesque, violent,
and grotesque as the more famous election in Eatanswill.
In this case there was a very serious collision between the
Chartists and the soldiers in the town ; hundreds of men
were arrested, and in several instances offenders were
sentenced to six months, four months, and two months,
with hard labour. In the same year Cobden and Bright
came to Nottingham, and took part in a great Free Trade
demonstration which further quickened the political feeling
in the town.

William Booth was affected by this storm. He svm-
pathized with the Chartists and attended their meetings.
Mr. W. T. Stead says that he " grew up in an atmosphere
of unrest, in a hot-bed of quasi-revolutionary discontent."
It should be borne in mind, however, that almost every-
thing demanded by the Chartists is now a commonplace of
our constitution. William Booth was never a revolution-
ary, and became more conservative as he grew older.

50 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

" My father," says Bramwell Booth, '' did not believe that
you could make a man clean by washing his shirt." In his
fourteenth year, however, he was a hot reformer. *' The
poverty." says ]\Ir. Stead, " that he saw on every side filled
him with a spirit of passionate revolt against constituted
authority. He was but a boy of thirteen when Feargus
O'Connor first visited Nottingham, but in all the thousands
the great Chartist orator had no more enthusiastic disciple
than William Booth. He was a Chartist — a physical force
Chartist of course, being a boy, and therefore uncompro-
mising. He went to their meetings, he cheered their
speeches, he subscribed to the Charter, and, if need had
arisen, he would have been disappointed if he could not
have shouldered a pike or fired a musket. ..." The
Chartists were for the poor,' so the boy reasoned, ' therefore
I am for the Chartists.' "

There was now a threefold pressure on the boy's mind.
He desired to succeed in business and make monev for
his mother and sisters; he was enthusiastic for political
reform — and somewhat ambitious to play the orator ; he
was vaguely but hauntingly anxious to arrive at some re-
ligious understanding with his own soul. In his home
he was distressingly aware of poverty; in the streets and
in his shop he saw little else but poverty ; and in his spirit
he was conscious of another and more insistent poverty.

One can picture the boy leaving his mother's little shop
early in the morning, probably rather hungry, and posting
at a great pace to the pawnbroker's shop. He was tall
beyond his years, exceedingly pale, wnth hair as black as a
raven, and dark luminous eyes that flashed at the least prov-
ocation ; a thin, pinched, pallid boy, wdio walked quickly
with a raking stride, stooping at the shoulders, the arms
swinging with energy. He would be one of the multitude
hasting to work, pushing his way through a multitude un-
willingly out of work, the noise of the frame-knitting ma-
chines in his ears, the sight of hungry children before his
eyes. And one can see him walking back through the dark
streets at eight o'clock at night, fagged, hungry, and tor-
tured by his thoughts, but eager for something to happen,

in] A YOUTHFUL CONVERSION 51

willing to take part in any vigorous action, never listless or
inert.

So passed two years of his " blighted childhood." Occa-
sionally he stole away from this wretchedness and forgot the
pain of the world in his favourite sport of fishing in the
Trent. Occasionally he was happy in the flowering fields,
which he loved with a real and poetic fervour. Occasionally
he threw himself into some merrs^ adventure with the new
companions of his employment. But the three steady
things in his mind were : first, the determination to get on
in the world; second, the ambition to work for political
change; and, third, a longing to right himself with God.

In the year 1844, with no outside human influence of
any kind upon his soul, this headstrong and impulsive boy
determined to make that total and mysterious surrender
of personality which is a condition precedent to what we
call conversion. He was unhappy, and he desired to escape
from unhappiness. Without language to describe his feel-
ings, without the faculty to analyze his sentiments, he came
to the decision that he would change the whole character
of his life and divert the energy of his soul into a new
channel.

'' I felt," he says, " that I wanted, in place of the life of
self-indulgence to which I was yielding myself, a happy,
conscious sense that I was pleasing God, living right, and
spending all my powers to get others into such a life."

In these words William Booth justifles the definition of
William James that '' to be converted, to be regenerated,
to receive grace, to experience religion, to gain assurance,
are so many phrases which denote the process, gradual or
sudden, by which a self hitherto divided, and consciously
wrong, inferior, and unhappy, becomes unified and con-
sciously right, superior, and happy, in consequence of its
firmer hold upon religious realities."

From the beginning of his life to the end, in spite of
much language w^hich might seem to exhibit religion only
as an escape from punishment, only as an escape from wrath,
only as an escape from eternal damnation, the heart and
soul of William Booth's religion was happiness — an uprush

52 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

of feeling from obstruction towards the central pivotal sense
of unity with God, a triumphant and penetrating blessing,
a victorious and suffusing solution of all sorrow, trouble,
difficulty, and spiritual confusion.

He desired in his distracted boyhood " a happy conscious
sense " that he was pleasing God.

'' I saw," he avers, '' that all this ought to be, and I
decided that it should be. It is wonderful that I should
have reached this decision in view of all the influences then
around me." His employer, a Unitarian, " never uttered
a w^ord to indicate that he believed in anything he could
not see, and many of my companions were worldly and
sensual, some of them even vicious."

He speaks of his instinctive belief in God, and goes on
to say, " I had no disposition to deny my instincts, which
told me that if there was a God His laws ought to have my
obedience and His interests my service."

Then follows a characteristic sentence : " I felt that it
was better to live right than to live wrong ; and as to caring
for the interests of others instead of my own, the condition
of the suffering people around me, people with whom I had
been so long familiar, and whose agony seemed to reach its
climax about this time, undoubtedly affected me very
deeply."

It may puzzle some people to believe that a boy of
fifteen was powerfully moved by the humanitarian spirit;
and no doubt William Booth saw in the darkness of those
early days, when he came to look back upon them, some-
thing of the reflected light of the great master-passion which
transfigured his after existence. Indeed, this history will
clearly show that he grew into humanitarianism, and that
this humanitarianism was the developed fruit of his re-
ligion. Nevertheless, it is quite certain that the germ of
humanitarianism was present in his soul from a very early
age, and there is definite proof that he was conscious of it
at the time of his conversion.

In all his papers dealing with this period of his life — and
he made more than one attempt at autobiography — there is
reference to the spectacle, in 1844, o^ children crying for
bread in the streets of Nottingham. This is perhaps the

m] A YOUTHFUL CONVERSION 53

most definite of all his youthful memories, transcending, of
a certainty, any influence made upon his mind by the
oratory of Feargus O'Connor. He could remember not a
word of the fiery speeches he had cheered till he was hoarse;
he could remember not a sermon he had listened to in chapel,
not an address, not *' an experience " he had heard in class;
but the visual memory of ragged children weeping bitterly
for food in the streets of the town was a picture printed on
his soul with a sharpness that could not be blurred. This
he remembered; and it will be seen that after his conver-
sion he did at least one little act of humanitarian charity
typical of the work which has ever since characterized and
honoured the Salvation Army.

He had now reached that point when the soul determines
to act with decision. He came nearer to the great step at
the services in which he took part, at the occasional Class
Meetings, where he answered the questions of his Leader
concerning the state of his soul ; but he could not bring
himself to the actual deed of a public surrender. Some-
thing: held him back. It was the memorv of a sin. " The
inward Light revealed to me," he says, '' that I must not
only renounce everything I knew to be sinful, but make
restitution, so far as I had the ability, for any wrong I had
done to others before I could find peace with God." The
boy was now tormented by a guilty conscience. He carried
about with him not only a guilty conscience, but a visible
and tangible possession which upbraided him with the wrath
of God. It was a silver pencil-case. And this silver pencil-
case, going to and from his work, and all the time he was
at his work, burned like fire against his flesh. Suddenly,
though the approach had been gradual and, in a sense,
dilatory, the struggle ceased. The moment came one night,
at eleven o'clock, in the streets of Nottingham.

'' It was in the open street," he says, '' that this great
change passed over me, and if I could only have possessed
the flagstone on which I stood at that happy moment, the
sight of it occasionally might have been as useful to me as
the stones carried up long ago from the bed of the Jordan
were to the Israelites who had passed over them dry-shod."

He tells us what had hitherto held him back : " The

54 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

entrance to the Heavenly Kingdom was closed against me
by an evil act of the past which required restitution. In a
boyish trading affair I had managed to make a profit out of
my companions, whilst giving them to suppose that what I
did was all in the way of a generous fellowship. As a testi-
monial of their gratitude they had given me a silver pencil-
case. Merely to return their gift would have been com-
paratively easy, but to confess the deception I had practised
upon them was a humiliation to which for some days I
could not bring myself.

I remember, as if it were but yesterday," he goes on,

the spot in the corner of the room under the chapel, the
hour, the resolution to end the matter, the rising up and
rushing forth, the finding of the young fellow I had chiefly
wronged, the acknowledgment of my sin, the return of the
pencil-case — the instant rolling away from my heart of the
guilty burden, the peace that came in its place, and the going
forth to serve my God and my generation from that hour."

He was happy, but happy in a frame of mind which may
be described as one of dead earnestness. He is careful to
say that he had no experience at this time of emotional
religion. He looks back and envies those who have had
that experience from the first. But he was happy. '' I
felt . . . that I could willingly and joyfully travel to the
ends of the earth for Jesus Christ, and suffer anything
imaginable to help the souls of other men."

There was something thorough in the effect of this con-
version, and he was troubled by no disenchantment of reac-
tion. '' One reason," he says, " for the victory I daily
gained from the moment of my conversion was, no doubt, my
complete and immediate separation from the godless world.
I turned my back on it. I gave it up, having made up my
mind beforehand that if I did go in for God I would do so
with all my might."

But one must be careful of this language.

There was scarcely a *' complete and immediate separa-
tion from the godless world." He remained in his employ-
ment for some years, and was a very clever and industrious
assistant to his Unitarian employer, as we shall see in the
next chapter. He was still obliged to rub shoulders with

ii
ii

ni] A YOUTHFUL CONVERSION 55

his former companions of this shop, some of whom were
'' worldly and sensual, some of them even vicious." What
he means is this, though the language is the language of a
far later period, that, living in the same surroundings as
before, and pursuing the same commercial goal as before,
he now separated himself from the more questionable of his
former companionships, abandoned all selfish amusement
in his leisure moments, and was conscious in his soul of a
solemn dedication of himself to high and lofty purposes.

Rather than yearning for the world's pleasures," he says,

books, games, or recreations, I found my new nature lead-
ing me to come away from it all. It had lost all charm for
me. What were all the novels, even those of Sir W^alter
Scott or Fenimore Cooper, compared with the story of my
Saviour? What were the choicest orators compared with
Paul? W^hat was the hope of money-earning, even with all
my desire to help my poor mother and sisters, in comparison
w4th the imperishable w^ealth of ingathered souls? I soon
began to despise everything the world had to offer me."

The language is not extravagant in the light of after
events, but it is probably exaggerated as a contemporary
expression of those first early movements of the boy's soul.
There is no doubt that he relinquished the reading of novels ;
no doubt that he abandoned many of his former friendships ;
no doubt that he ceased to envy the oratory of Feargus
O'Connor; and no doubt that he ceased to feel pleasure in
the diversions of his former life. But one must be careful
to remember that he still continued to be the cleverest and
most dependable of his employer's staff, and gave no public
signs of desiring a life with greater religious opportunities.
The phrase, '' I soon began to despise everything the world
had to offer me," is spme\yhat too exuberant for this phase
of his experience.

But the great step was taken. Nothing is more charac-
teristic of the man than the simple, downright, blunt, almost
horrisonant statement in which he declares that he had made
up his mind, " if I did go in for God," to do so with all his
might. To William Booth at that time, and to William
Booth at the last stage of his long journey, the choice lay
for all mankind between God and Devil. He believed

56 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

emphatically in both. He could see no escape from belief
in both. And he knew already, had known it throughout
his '' blighted childhood," that men definitely or indefin-
itely, consciously or unconsciously, by all their thoughts
and by all their actions, with consequences visible here, and
direr consequences unimaginable hereafter, serve the One or
the other. To '' go in for God." however the phrase may
strike upon the ear, meant with him a rational decision for
the Best, a whole-hearted loyalty to the Highest, and a life
of logical self-sacrifice devoted to Righteousness. He had
inherited from his father a commercial mind ; the imagina-
tion of his mother's ancestry gave warmth and fervour to
his disposition; the hard, vigorous, uncompromising spirit
of the north inspired his soul. Such a youth could speak
about going in for God without offence, and in speaking
about it he would mean it with an iron logic and a fixed
determination. His instincts told him '' that if there were
a God His laws ought to have my obedience " ; and '' one
feeling specially forced itself upon me, and I can recollect
it as distinctly as though it had transpired only yesterday,
and that was the sense of the folly of spending my life in
doing things for which I knew I must either repent or be
punished in the days to come."

There was something of a bargain in his decision. Con-
sciously or unconsciously, logic was at work in his soul.
But chiefly he came to religion as an escape from the un-
happiness, the unrest, and the dissatisfaction of his troubled
heart; came to it, too, almost unhelped, unencouraged, and
unbe friended. The child who had grown up with the idea
that he was '' to be made a gentleman " ; who had seen the
shadow of poverty deepening every day upon the shabbying
Vv'alls of his unhappy home; who had been left to form his
own friendships and find his own amusements in the playing-
fields of a manufacturing town ; who had been thrust into a
very exacting and dispiriting employment at the age of thir-
teen ; who had seen his father die, and helped his mother
while he was yet a boy to move into a humble shop and
begin life over again ; who had witnessed the utmost miseries
and depressions of a commercial reaction which spread ruin
on every side; who had listened with enthusiasm to the

Ill] A YOUTHFUL CONVERSION 57

oratory of so-called revolutionary politicians — this boy
came of his own choice, so far as we can judge, to the
religion which makes a supreme demand and confers an
exclusive benefit. He came to it for release. He came to
it, one may say, selfishly. And it is certain that he realized
neither the demand it was to make of him, nor dreamed of
the triumph to which it was destined to carry him.

In the year 1844 William Booth was a very youthful
shop-assistant who had decided to live a religious life, and
who w^as working exceedingly hard to improve his material
prospects. Happiness had come to him, and he had escaped
from the wretchedness of unrest by confessing to a sin that
haunted his conscience, and by deciding to live henceforth
in the knowledge and service of God.

No conversion could be simpler, less dramatic, and more
natural; few in the long history of Christianity have
brought a richer harvest to the whole world.

CHAPTER IV

BEGINNINGS OF THE NEW LIFE AND THE FIRST SERMON
EVER PREACHED BY WILLIAM BOOTH

1845

" Directly after I was converted I had a bad attack of
fever. I was brought down to the edge of the River."

This emphatic statement, occurring abruptly in the
disjecta membra of autobiography, might lead the reader
to suppose that conversion had been approached in a mor-
bid and unhealthy manner, that the great submission had
been made in a feverish or hysterical frame of mind. But,
fortunately for the truth, the statement is typical of Wil-
liam Booth's indifference to chronology. The attack of
fever did not come till nearly two years after his con-
version, when he was seventeen years of age, and at the
threshold of his extraordinarv career. Conversion was fol-
lowed, unfortunately for our present purpose, by about two
years of autobiographical silence.

Three things alone are known with any degree of definite-
ness concerning these important years. We know that the
chief friendship of his 3^outh was deepened by his new re-
ligious experience ; we know that the humanitarian instinct
manifested itself in at least one act of touching kindness;
and we know that romance for the first time knocked at the
heart of this vounof vovae^er, whose chart was not vet
marked for boundless adventures of quite other kind.

AA^hen the friendship of William Booth and William
Sansom began is not clearly known, but it was probably
as early as the days of Nottintone Place, where the two
boys would have been close neighbours. Will Sansom, as
he is affectionatelv called, was the son of a well-to-do lace
manufacturer. His social circumstances were superior to
AVilliam Booth's, his prospects altogether of a more enviable
nature. Yet from very early days, just as Ann Booth was
the chosen friend of Sarah Butler, so William Booth was the

58

[CHAP. IV] WILLIA:.! BOOTH'S FIRST SERMON 59

chosen friend of this fortunate young man; and in both
cases, it is worthy of noticing, the friendship persisted when
the Booths were reduced from a proud poverty to a staring
and emphaltic penury. Something there must have been in
these Booths very attractive and admirable.

I asked Mrs. Osborne, the Sarah Butler of those days,
if William Booth was at all violent in the first enthusiasm
of his preaching. " Not in the least," she replied; adding.
'' if he had been, Will Sansom would have curbed him."
This answer not only exhibits Sansom as a refined and
gentle nature ; it shows that he exercised a decided influence
over William Booth.

Will Sansom is described as a very handsome young man,
romantic-looking, and marked from boyhood by the intense
and dreadful signs of consumption. He was one of those
whom Maeterlinck calls the Pre-destincd. " The men
among whom they dwell become the better for the knowl-
edge of them, and the sadder, -and the more gentle." He
was of the company '' who look at us with an eager smile,
and seem to be on the point of confessing that they know
all; and then, towards their twentieth year, they leave us,
hurriedly, muffling their footsteps, as though they had just
discovered that they had chosen the wrong dwelling-place,
and had been about to pass their lives among men whom
they did not know." In this case the youth was pro-
foundly religious. He had the deep absorbing faith of a
Gratray, the fervour of a Pascal, the hastening evangelical
eagerness of a Wesley. The nearer he approached his
youthful death the more passionately did he seek to spread
his knowledge of the truth. But always he was refined
in manner, persuasive in method, winning and ingratiating
by nature.

" We were like David and Jonathan," says William
Booth ; and Mrs. Osborne described to me how these two
young men were always together, how they walked about
arm-in-arm, how they both had the same stoop, the same
pallor, the same brightness of the eyes. The friendship was
noticed by other people. The young men were regarded
by their circle as " bosom friends."

It is not often in biography that such a friendship as

6o THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

this is recorded, the deep and affectionate friendship of a
young man prosperous and well-stationed with the appren-
ticed shop-assistant. Religion had much to do with it, but
the first cause appears to have been the commanding char-
acter and extraordinary attraction of Wilful Will.

Some time after William Booth's conversion, these two
youths were attracted by the friendless condition of a poor
old withered beggar-woman who shuffled about the streets
in horrid rags, endured the mockery of street boys, suffered
the persecution of Nottingham '' lambs," and slept in door-
ways or under hedges — a grotesque parody of womanhood.
\\'illiam Booth must have seen her a hundred times before
his conversion, for she was a character of the streets : but
it was not until after his conversion that her deplora1)le
destitution, the infinite pity of her forlorn and friendless
state, appealed to 'his compassion. He determined to rescue
her from this state, and consulted Will Sansom as to the
best way of ensuring her w^elfare. Then they went about
among their friends, collected money, took a little cabin,
furnished it, and installed the old woman within, making
provision for her support. The most wretched creature,
the most ridiculed and neglected of all Nottingham's mis-
erables had moved the heart of William Booth to compas-
sion, and upon such an one as this he made his first experi-
ment in social work.

During this period in his life he imagined that his earthly
happiness was bound up w^ith the life of a girl into Vv'hose
society he had been thrown for some years. She was the
daughter of the old couple who had first introduced him
to Methodism, the old people who loved him because he
resembled their dead son. For a number of months Wil-
liam Booth walked about the world believing that he was
in love. He probably discussed the matter with \\\\\
Sansom. He was elated by the discovery, and cherished the
thought of this wonderful passion at his heart with a fer-
vour of sentimentalism. The young lady sang well, and
William Booth, who then could not sing himself, loved
music very keenly. It was a great pleasure for him to sit
and listen to the singing of this pretty girl, who was a little
older than himself.

IV] WILLIAM BOOTH'S FIRST SERMON 6i

But before many amorous moons had waned, the young
zealot made another discovery, as startling and much more
liberating than the first. He discovered that he did not
love this person at all, that she was not his inamorata, and
certainly should never be his wife. It was a case of '' calf-
love," he says, and laughs it out of his memory. His only
obsession was religion.

He does not seem to have suffered at this period from
any healthy or unhealthy disquiet of soul. His disposition
was too headlong and impulsive, his anxieties too outward
and unselfish for moonings within the depths of his own
consciousness. He was no mystic, and he was no prig ; but
he suffered, some men may say suffered all his life, from
what Arnold called Hebraism. God was the supreme con-
cernment of his life. Everything else brought into relation
with this immense interest dwindled to insignificance. He
had something of Carlyle's contempt for Art. Science had
no vital attraction for him. The sports and amusements
of mankind filled him with contemptuous impatience. So
tremendous was his sense of God that he never questioned
it, rarely scrutinized it, refusing to paralyze his devotion
and his senses by a moment's incredulity concerning this
subjective conception of the Infinite. He had one thought,
to live absolutely in accordance with God's will.

In the year 1846, when he was seventeen, came the
attack of fever which brought him '' to the edge of the
River." He had outgrown his calf-love, he was deep in
the friendship of Will Sansom, he was still keen about suc-
ceeding in business, above all other things earnest in re-
ligion.

The visit of James Caughey, of \yhom a description is
given in the first chapter, occurred at this time. William
Booth caught fire from the flame of this revivalist's oratory.
He was deeply and pervasively influenced by the uncom-
promising realism of the American preacher. It may have
been that his attack of fever was in some measure due to
the excitement occasioned throughout Nottingham by this
missionary. He went to all the services he could attend,
he joined in the singing of some of Charles Wesley's trium-
phant battle-songs, he witnessed scenes of conversion which

62 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

were extraordinarily excitino^, and he saw in the lives of
many of his neighbours the veritable miracle of new birth.
Here, at last, was religion in action, the real and living
religion of his dreams. He gave himself up to it, thought
of scarce anything else, and presently was laid by with a
raging fever.

While he tossed on his bed, over the dim, struggling,
and shabby shop in which Widow Booth sold tape and
cotton, a message was brought to him from Will Sansom —
a message which very probably saved his life. Sansom
sent word to him that he was starting an open-air mission
in the slums of Nottingham, and bade him get well quickly
and come and help him. Here was medicine and vocation
in one! The message rallied the spirit of the sick youth;
it was like a trumpet-call to his drooping soul ; and he
rose from his bed as soon as he had strength to stand, and
went back to his work and out, for the first time, to religious
activity.

More memorable in his life than 1844 was this year
of grace 1846; and, fortunately, it is from this point that
the stream of biography begins to flow with strength and
certainty. If his souvenirs d'enfance are misted with a
Lethean miasma, if his memories of boyhood are little
more than a concordia discors, from his seventeenth year
onward we possess almost every detail and every fact, al-
most every lineament and every expression, almost every
thought and shade of feeling, for the composition of a
faithful portrait. The life of the man begins from 1846;
and it was a life lived so frankly and honestly, so far away
from the morbid centre of self -introspection, so completely
at that uttermost circumference of being where self is
consumed in a passionate care for others, that one can be
sure of a veritable likeness. No man ever lived who kept
back less of himself from the gaze of the world, or who
gave more of himself to the service of humanity.

Will Sansom had not long to wait for an answer to his
message. ** No sooner was I able to get about than I
gladly joined him." But William Booth, the leader of
everything, was shy and self-conscious of speaking in the
open, or of speaking at all in public. He joined in the

IV] WILLIAM BOOTH'S FIRST SERMON 63

services, but would neither preach nor pray. Will Sansom
sang, prayed, and preached. He was helped by a friend
named Samuel Hovey, by Sarah Butler, and by one of her
sisters who sang beautifully. William Booth contented
himself with standing in the group, with singing in the
hymns, with exclaiming Amen in the prayers, and with
speaking privately to those who surrounded the company.

But the influence of David Greenbury effected a change.
This evangelist from Scarborough, of whom mention has
been made in the opening chapter, was the first man to
realize the force and power of William Booth as a preacher.
He was struck by Booth's earnestness, by the vigour of
his personality, and by his remarkable appearance and em-
phatic manner. He urged upon the young man that it was
his duty to speak, that he owed it to God to conquer his
timidity, which was a form of selfishness. One of Booth's
favourite hymns came to his assistance. He was haunted
by the verse —

And can I yet delay

My little all to give?
To tear my soul from earth away

For Jesus to receive?
Nay, but I yield, I yield !

I can hold out no more;
I sink, by dying love compelled.

And own Thee conqueror.

With the same sudden abandon that had characterized
his surrender two years before to the urgence of conscience,
he now not only threw himself into the work of street
preaching, but became the recognized leader of the group.

" The Meetings we held," he says, " were very remark-
able for those days. We used to take out a chair into the
street, and one of us mounting it would give out a hymn,
which we then sang with the help of, at the most, three or
four people. Then I would talk to the people, and invite
them to come with us to a Meeting in one of the houses."
Of Will Sansom he -says, " He had a fine appearance, was
a beautiful singer, and possessed a wonderful gift in prayer.
After I had spoken in our Open-Air Meeting he would
kneel down and wrestle with God until it seemed as though

64 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

he would move the very stones on which he knelt, as well
as the hearts of the people who heard him."

At this period in- his life there was nothing of that
humorous spirit which characterized so much of his later
work. Sarah Butler says that his nature was rather
'' morose and melancholy." He was " tremendously in
earnest."

There is still living in Nottingham a very old woman
who knew the Booths in Sneinton, and remembers the first
sermon preached by William Booth. She gave me an ac-
count of that sermon, and described the meetings in the
cottages, her dim eyes shining with pleasure through their
thick spectacles, her face illuminated by a deep joy.

" The first sermon he ever preached," she said, '' was in
Kid Street. I remember it very well. The Meeting was
held in a small cottage. It was at eight o'clock at night,
and he had come straight from his work. There was a box
placed upside down on the table for a desk, with two candles
burning, one each side of the Bible. The door stood open,
and poor women came into the tiny parlour, bringing their
own chairs with them. In the doorway was a group of
men, afraid to come in lest they should be converted, but
interested in this new way of preaching religion. They
filled up the doorv/ay, a dark little crowd that extended into
the street. Will Booth's sermon — ah, how well I remem-
ber it ! — was very gentle and tender, quite different from
anything else I ever heard him say to the people, and so
strange for a young man to preach that it almost made some
of the women smile. Fie talked of little children learning
to walk. He described how they toddled, and swayed, and
came near to falling. He said how difficult a thing it was
for little babes to learn the use of their legs, to trust their
tiny feet, and to advance with courage. And then he asked
if any mother, watching her child's first efforts to walk,
would be cross with the infant's failure, would shout at it
when it swayed, would sit still, unmoved, when it fell and
hurt itself. Then he said that it was just as difficult to live
a true Christian life, and that we should always be on the
look-out for helping people, especially those who were only
just beginning to live that life. He said it was wrong to

IV] WILLIAM BOOTH'S FIRST SERMON 65

judge them when they failed, and just as wrong to sit idle
w^hen-they fell. We should run, and lift them up, and help
them. Hard words would not help them; sitting still
w^ould not 'help them; we must go and do something to
make it less hard for them to walk straight."

She told me, too, that she heard one of his earliest
preachings in the open street. The scene was Red Lion
Square, and he was surrounded by a crowd of poor people.

" That was a very different sermon ! " she exclaimed.
'' He called out in his great voice that all the suffering and
sorrow of the world came from sin. I remember how he
said, ' Friends, I want to put a few straight questions to
your souls. Have any of you got a child at home without
shoes to its little feet ? Are your wives sitting now in dark '
houses waiting for you to return, without money? Are
you going away from here to the public-house to spend on
drink money that your waives need for food and your chil-
dren for shoes?' It was all like that. And then he read
out the Wesleyan hymn which has the verse :

Misers ! for you His life He paid;

Your basest crime He bore:
Drunkards ! your sins on Him were laid

That you miglH sin no more.

I think there had never been such preaching in the open

streets before. One of his other favourite hymns had the

verse :

Outcasts of men, to you I call,

Harlots and publicans and thieves !
He spreads His arm to embrace you all;

Sinners alone His grace receives:
No need of Him the righteous have,
He came the lost to seek and save.

I remember, too, how^ he was insulted, and how calmly he
bore it. Once, while he was preaching in Pump Street, a
man who had stopped to listen suddenly shouted out, shak-
ing his fist at the preacher, ' You liar ! you liar ! ' And
Will Booth just looked at him, and said in a very soft,
kindly voice, ' Friend, it was for you He died ; stop, and be
saved.' He was alwavs like that."

66 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

There is another old body living in Nottingham who
remembers those early days, a very rigid, ultra-respectable,
demure, and eloquent spinster. Her brother was one of
William Booth's earliest friends, one of the first to join the
little group of street preachers. She spoke throughout our
conversation with emphatic gravity, very plainly conscious
of her importance, and maintaining an aspect of preter-
natural solemnity. '' To begin with," she said, " Billy
was rather forward." So far as my researches go, this old
lady is the only person in the whole world who ever referred
to A\"illiam Booth as " Billy." He was sometimes called
by his father in childhood '' Bill," and among his associates
he was known as '' Will "; but no one else that I can find
trace of ever ventured to speak of him with the extreme
familiaritv of " Billv." The ladv seemed to use this name
with a relish, as though it increased the prestige of her ven-
erable position and diminished the world-wide fame of the
great evangelist to -a humility relatively suitable.

"You must not misunderstand me," she said; "he was
not overbearing; he was not violent; he was not what you
would call domineering ; but he was forward, distinctly f or-
w^ard. Yes, he was a forward lad. You could never have
kept him down. You could never have held him back.
He was bound to push forward and take the lead in every-
thin

cr

Can you describe him to me?" I asked.

"Describe him? Who? Billy? Oh, yes. Well, he
was what you would call nice-looking. I shouldn't say he
was handsome. At any rate he was not so handsome as
you, not nearly."

I protested — as well I might.

" He was too pale to be handsome," she continued crit-
ically, ignoring the protest. " He was not so handsome
as you, but his legs were longer. I should describe him as
a nice-looking lad. He was tall, yes, decidedly tall, and thin ;
remarkably so. He was clean-shaven in those days ; he
wore his hair long, it was the fashion then, and his hair
was as black as coal ; he had a stoop in his shoulders, and
looked as if he had outgrown himself. I should say that
he was perhaps something more than nice-looking. I should

rv] WILLIAM BOOTH'S FIRST SERMON 67

call him strange-looking, romantic-looking. If you saw
him once you would never forget him. Of course his nose
was very striking-looking. We always called that ' the
Wellington.' A strange face, very; so pale, so white, and
with all that black hair, and those piercing eyes — yes, a
romantic face — decidedly so."

Her insistence upon the romantic character of his appear-
ance prompted me to ask a question to which I had long
been anxious to get an answer.

I began by asking if he had been surrounded from the
first days of his preaching by a number of young ladies.

" Well, it began with one or two," replied the demure
spinster, '' but the number increased."

" Now, I wonder if you can tell me," said I, as non-
chalantly as the circumstances permitted, *' whether there
is any truth in the story that he was in love with one of
those young ladies? "

As though I had made a most scandalous suggestion, the
venerable lady straightened her back, regarded me coldly,
and replied with a trenchant scorn, " As for that, I will
only say, speaking from a long experience of life, that the
number of young ladies who imagine that every young man
they meet is in love with them is only equalled by the
number of young men who go about the world fancying that
every young lady that looks their way is in love with them.
It is a pity it should be so, but so it is. As for Will Booth,
I never heard that he was in love with anybody, though there
was some talk that he might make a match of it one day
with a very sweet young lady who sang at his meetings.
But I should be at a standstill, my dear sir, I really should,
if I was to try and tell you the number of young ladies
who were in love with him. He was a favourite. He
was worshipped, as you may say. And I think he was
certainly a very romantic-looking, attractive, and interesting
young man."

The " very sweet young lady who sang at his meetings "
was a sister of Sarah Butler, and although no mention is
made of her in William Booth's autobiographical notes, it is
probable that he did look upon this follower with a some-
what more particular and personal interest than the others.

68 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

It is certain that he never spoke to her except about religion ;
it is certain that he did not in any way " keep company "
with her ; but in one wav or the other his followers came to
regard it as a possibility that William Booth and the sweet
singer might some day make a match of it; while, many
years after, when as a very old man he was reminded of
this young lady, and told of the expectation which existed
among the others, he smiled and made answer, " Ah, I
remember there was such a person ! "

It seems that after they had conducted their open-air
meetings and finished their preachings in the cottages, this
body of young enthusiasts would sometimes go for a walk
before returning to their homes. But there was never, I
am told, any mingling of the sexes on these occasions.
^' The men always walked together in front, and we would
follow behind," says Sarah Butler. Conversation was about
religion. Schemes for spreading Christianity were dis-
cussed. Particular sinners were marked down for personal
appeals and private prayer.

" I remember, however," Sarah Butler told me, " one of
those walks when we more or less travelled together, and
conversation turned upon other things beside religion.
Some one proposed that we should go and look at the new
railway line that was being laid at Colwick. It was a
wonderfully quiet night. The moon was shining. And it
w^as summer-time. Well, we were very happy and elated.
We loved the stillness, the fields, the woods, and the moon-
light. We sang as we walked. We rejoiced in our hap-
piness. And I think William Booth did walk with my sis-
ter for a little time, but I can't be certain. However,
nothing came of the walk, or of any other meeting. I used
to think they were in love with each other, but I see now it
was only a fancy. William Booth had no other thought in
his mind at that time than preaching to the people and sav-
ing sinners from their sin. He was the most earnest and
enthusiastic man I ever knew — he was really burning,
really on fire, to save souls. He used to say that we were
saved to save. He could not stand people who said their
souls were saved and who did nothing to save other people.
If he thought of my sister at all, it was only a passing

IV] WILLIAM BOOTH'S FIRST SERMON 69

thought. No one could make a romance out of it. I as-
sure you he was too much in earnest about this street-
preaching to think of falhng in love."

We see this group of young people, preaching and pray-
ing in the streets, holding their little services in cottages,
going for walks in sexual separation, whether with moon
shining or not shining, meeting in chapel on Saturday,
attending classes, discussing sermons and gossip of chapel
life — a group of earnest young lives conscious of God,
conscious of God's demand upon them, and preoccupied
with business of the next world — a strange and lonely
group in Nottingham, making no great stir there, in-
curring some local ridicule, and occasioning some distinct
alarm and misgiving in the straight minds of rigid chapel
orthodoxy.

It would seem that the great humanitarian spirit of the
Christian religion had not yet developed in the soul of
William Booth. He was a member of the Church, he
attended the services of that Church, and his labours were
directed to preaching his gospel of salvation in order to
save people from hell and bring them into membership with
his Church. The Chartist was dead in him. The Methodist
was very much alive. Years were to pass before he broke
free from sectarianism, before he reached Christianity as a
spirit that could not be bound, and before he perceived the
concurrent necessity of social betterment with spiritual
welfare.

In the lives of few religious leaders is growth more
evident. He was haunted now and again, as we shall see,
by dogmas and theological practices which had once formed
part of his religious life, but he was never deeply perturbed
by these old clothes of his youth, and in his normal moods
he was conscious of no need for any theology in his service
to the world but that which led men to the heart of Christ.
He grew wonderfully, he developed amazingly, and at the
end, though a certain hard and rigorous strain endured, his
spirit was one of the sweetest, tenderest, most tolerant and
gentle that ever longed for spiritual perfection.

He was asked, when he was an old man, by a friend of
his youth if he still insisted upon some particular doctrine

70 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

of his youth. The answer is a key to the man's soul. Tap-
ping his friend impatiently on the breast with the back
of his hand, he said, " Look here, when a fellow speaks
to us like that we tell him to go and do something." This
may have been uttered only as the expression of a mood,
for he held this doctrine himself, but such utterance shows
that his emphasis was upon service, not upon speculation.

But it was years before he could give such a great and
splendid answer, an answer so robust with the health of
true and manful religion. He himself had to grow to that
answer. For years he was interested in such speculations,
for years he was plagued by theology, for years he was blind
to the natural and shameful causes of human misery ; but,
although to the end of his days he believed in such a doctrine
as that of Entire Sanctification, and although he never tore
up the documents of abstract theology, he certainly grew
more and more impatient of egoistic introspection, more and
more insistent upon zvork for God.

Nevertheless, even at this epoch in his life, there are
signs of the wonders that v/ere yet to be. One catches
glimmerings of an original mind, flashes of a spirit that
could revolt passionately from orthodoxy, and sparks of a
soul that well might burst into flame for the salvation of
unhappy people.

The respectable citizens who attended Wesley Chapel —
good, solid Christians of the commercial variety, the gentle-
men in broadcloth, and the ladies in bombazine, or some
other notable material of the period guaranteeing moral
value and financial stability — these goodly and satisfied
souls were one Sunday morning astonished out of their
senses by such a scuflling of broken boots, such a rustle of
shoddy rags, and such a stertorous breathing of congregated
misery as never before had desecrated their brick-and-mor-
tar habitation of Wesleyanism.

William Booth had made himself an apostle to the lads
of Nottingham slums; he had preached to them in the
open, gathered a circle about him, and was on fire to bring
them within the fold of the Methodists. H he was happy
kneeling in the streets at night and praying with them, he
desired to be happier still by praying with them on Sunday,

1^1 WILLIAM BOOTH'S FIRST SERMON 71

praying with these ragged roughs and toughs within the
consecrated walls of Wesley Chapel. And so it came about
one Sunday that he marched his first regiment of the ragged
and neglected into the aisles of the most respectable Temple,
conducted them into the best pews he could find, and sat
among them almost quivering with satisfaction and delight.
But the effect of this invasion was not what he had hoped.
The young enthusiast was called before Authority, was
argued with, was instructed, and was finally told that he
might bring these outcasts into the chapel only if he entered
by the back door (invisible behind the pulpit) and seated
his converts in obscure benches reserved particularly for the
impecunious and shabby.

One of the most notable Wesleyan preachers of the
present time cannot think of this and other incidents con-
nected with Nottingham Wesleyanism, presently to be de-
scribed, without an angry indignation. He can see per-
fectlv well that if Huo^h Price Hus^hes and manv another
Wesleyan preacher of later times had been minister of that
chapel in Nottingham, William Booth would never have
been lost to the ^Methodists. But I think it is truer to say
that Hugh Price Hughes, and men like him, both among
the Methodists and the Anglican communion, owe their en-
thusiasm and their democratic Christianity to the Salva-
tion Army, and that this Army was too spontaneous and
original an expression of religious experience to have grown
up within any of the fixed and settled Churches.

As for this particular incident, plainly enough there is
much to be said for the judgment delivered by Authority.
One may be indignant about it from afar ofT. but to sit for
hours among a company of unwashed, malodorous, and
possibly diseased humanity is not an experience healthful
for the body nor conducive to religious concentration. It
is a merit in William Booth that he saw the validity of
this objection: that, young and headstrong as he was, he
did not immediately abandon the work; that, hurt and
chilled as surely he must have been, he yet bowed to the
ruling, accepted the judgment, and obeyed his religious
superiors.

But he felt more and more the call of the streets. As

J2 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

soon as ever his work would allow, he was preaching to the
miserables and outcasts of Nottingham, seeking sinners,
interesting the indifferent, thundering the wrath of God
against wickedness and transgression. He won one man
w^ho was famous in the town as a " character," the drunken,
wife-beating, humorous-minded rascal, known as " Besom
Jack," of whom mention has been made. This man had
lived an utterly abominable life. He w^ent about the streets
selling brooms, and every penny that he gained in this
manner was spent upon drink. His poor wife had to beg
at the doors of her neighbours for a few used tea-leaves,
which she boiled up afresh, and so lived, starving and
terrified. Booth won this man, won him so completely
that he became a faithful follower of the street preachers,
working for them, helping them, saving the old companions
of his drunken days, and devoting himself in his home to
making amends for his past iniquity. His conversion
created something of a sensation. It was not recognized
as a miracle, but it was talked about as something either
amusing or interesting, something for mockery and sneers,
or for discussion and timorous questioning, according to the
faith or no faith of the talkers.

*' The leading men in the Church to which I belonged,"
says Booth, '' were afraid I was going too fast, and gave
me plenty of caution, quaking and fearing at every new
departure, but never a word of encouragement to help me
on. But I went forward all the same."

He remarks that there were many indications in those
early events of the organization which he was destined to
bring into existence several years afterwards. Not only
was there preaching in the streets, not only was there a
tracking down of particular sinners, not only was there a
total insistence on the absolute necessity of a changed heart,
but every opportunity was seized by the young enthusiast
for striking the torpid imaginations of the people with the
realities of spiritual life. One of his followers, for instance,
a young girl of humble parentage, was brought to her death-
bed ; William Booth and his friends prayed and sang at her
bedside; she died with the expectation of heaven shining in

IV] WILLIAM BOOTH'S FIRST SERMON 73

her face, ancl her funeral was made an occasion tor triumph
and rejoicing. To the end of his days he never forgot that
funeral. He remembers that it was snowing, and he tells
how a procession was formed in the white streets, and how
the body of the girl was borne to her grave through the
snowfall between rows of watching people, and followed by
his regiment of helpers singing hymns of victory and joy.

So consumed was he by the passion for saving souls that
reticence and restraint to him were like ropes about the legs
of a starving man seeking for food. He was working hard
for daily bread, it must be remembered, from early in the
morning until seven, often eight, o'clock at night ; it was only
for a few dark hours that his fiery soul had opportunity for
seeking the welfare of his fellow-creatures; all the passion
and tremendous sincerity of his impetuous spirit, pent up
during the hours of uncongenial toil, burst their bonds in
the brief evenings of his ministration and made him what
men call a zealot and a fanatic.

It is important to observe, however, that the thought
of entering the ministry, of giving up everything for the
preaching of religion, had not yet even occurred to his
mind. He regarded himself as a layman. He considered
that one of the first charges on his life was the support of
his mother and sisters. He w^as very much in earnest about
his future, terribly distressed by the extreme difficulty of
earning a living. Again and again the complaint breaks out
that he was stung with bitterness by the pitiful position in
which he found himself placed — a position of bound ap-
prentice to a niggardly employer, earning but a small wage,
and forced to witness, he, the only son of his mother, the
calamitous poverty of that shabby smallware shop in Goose
Gate.

He had been sent to the best school in Nottinsfham ;
he had been encouraged to regard himself as a gentleman;
the talk of his father had been all of fortune-making and
fine living; until he was thirteen years of age it had never
once occurred to him that he would have to work hard,
and, working hard, find himself unable to support life. His
mother was a proud woman, of better family than his

74 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.iv]

father; his sisters were girls of strong character and im-
patient of poverty. He was galled by his helplessness,
vexed with his destiny.

At the beginning of his religious zeal he was opposed by
his family. His efforts to spiritualize the life of his home
were met with impatience and counter-attacks upon his
new-found theology. Presently he gained his elder sister,
Ann : later he won his invalid sister. Emma ; and later still
Mary Booth, his mother, surrendered to his insistent appeals.
But for some years he received scarcely any encouragement
in his home, and at the beginning was definitely withstood
and gainsaid.

Therefore we have the drama presented to us of a young
man straining every nerve -to support a family opposed to
the divine interests of his innermost life, a young man
committed to a form of employment extremely distasteful
to his mind, who felt himself urged and driven by the Spirit
of God to seek sinners and to save the lost, and who used
every minute of his leisure in this work against the dis-
couragement of his religious superiors and the opposition of
his family. If those who later in his career did not scruple,
but actually hastened, to attack this singular and pure-
minded man, charging him, among other sins, with hypoc-
risy and cant and self-seeking — if they had known of these
first chapters in his religious life, had known of his cour-
ageous devotion, of his intense solitude of soul, of his
manful struggle against forces which crush heroism and
turn enthusiasm to bitterness and despair, surely they had
laid their hands upon their mouths. He experienced in
those years, and for many years afterAvards, a ceaseless
hindrance to the clamour of his soul; and, impulsive, mas-
terful, and wilful as he was by nature, even while he pressed
forward on the path of spiritual duty, he yet loyally
bowed his back to the burden of necessity and carried his
load with a stout heart. He not only helped, so far as he
could, to support his mother and sisters, but he looked for-
ward to the future with this objective always before his eyes.

CHAPTER V

WHAT HE BELIEVED AT THIS TIME

1845

It is time to examine the theology of this seventeen-year-
old youth, the theology which had changed the direction
of his life and laid a powerful and constraining hand upon
the impulses of his passionate nature.

At its centre this theology remained the religion of his
long life, without change or modification of any kind. In
the radius of its circumference there were changes —
changes making for a less partial outlook on human life, and
producing greater tolerance and deeper kindness in the heart
of the man ; but the centre was constant and unshakable.

He had been guided, he tells us, largely without human
intervention, almost entirely by the Spirit of God, to per-
ceive that the very soul of the Christian Revelation — mak-
ing it a religion altogether different from every other reli-
gion and every other philosophy under heaven — is the di-
vine miracle of conversion.^ And by conversion he under-
stood a totally changed attitude of soul. He himself had
experienced this mystery, he himself had been the human
means of producing it in other people; nothing in the world
was of such certain and absolute reality to his brain and
heart.

He became at this time impatient of political agitation,
abandoned altogether his sympathy with Chartism, regarded
his previous pleasures and amusements as the mere follies
of childhood ; nothing was of moment now but the myster}^
of conversion. To the drunkard and the sensualist who
were striving to fight against their sins, he said, " It is useless

1 A well-known psychologist has argued that conversions are known
outside the Christian religion ; but the conversion which makes Chris-
tianity different from every other religion is the conversion which re-
sults in a life of love to God and unbroken service to humanity, par-
ticularly to the humblest and the most sorrowful.

75

^6 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

for you to struggle, the sin is stronger than you; nothing
can come of your efforts except defeat and death; but,
seek a change of heart, surrender yourself entirely to God,
leave it to Him to overcome your temptations, and you will
find victor}^ is yours."

He saw that temptations which were overpoweringly
seductive to natural man, which became invested with
all the glamour and magic of a strong passion to souls
conscious only of their bodies, and striving only with
human strength to contend against them, became instantly
reduced to the impotence of their true triviality in the eyes
of a soul really and profoundly conscious of God and
Eternity. Conversion with him was the di\ine focus re-
vealing all thoughts and all things in their absolute per-
spective. H, by the power of Christ, he had been saved by
this simple miracle of conversion, and if such a creature as
Besom Jack had been saved by the same means, then surely
here was medicine for all the ills of the whole world and the
true path to everlasting salvation.

He held then, and held to the end of his days, that
directly a soul is converted — that is to say, directly the
spirit of a man looks upon earthly life with the sure and cer-
tain knowledge that a living God exists, and that by faith
in Christ he is brought into harmony with that God —
temptation loses its power and the soul is impelled towards
holiness. Other theological doctrines, with which now we
need not concern ourselves, flowed from this fixed centre
of his life; but this centre, this immovable and absolute
centre, was the heart and soul of his religious existence.
How a man was to gain conversion — this carried him into
the field of doctrine; but the dogma of his daily life, the
conviction of his active soul, was the central and illumina-
ting dogma of a New Birth.

In a sense this dogma was faithfully preached at Wesley
Chapel, was indeed the very spirit of contemporary Method-
ism. But it was held formally and preached, if not coldly,
at least without passion. Above all things it was preached
mainly to the converted. Here was the secret of life, the
Open Sesame of distracted and perishing mortality, hidden
away in respectable chapels and kept as a treasure by those

V] WHAT HE BELIEVED AT THIS TIME yj

already rich with blessings. But, outside Wesley Chapel,
far and wide under the smoke of a roaring God-scorning
city, stretched the slums and warrens and rookeries of
Nottingham; and there men were living in sin and infamy,
women going down to hell in a legion, children perishing
like flies. Was no one to tell these doomed multitudes that
the way to everlasting felicity was plain and straight before
them? Was no one to go out into the highways and
byw^ays? Was no one to go as a physician to those who
had no physician ? Clearly some one must go to them ; he
and his friends would go ; and since time was short, since
the issues were of such awful importance, he and his friends
would stop at nothing to rouse these miserable poor people
to the glorious news of salvation. They must be told before
it was too late. And yet when he went to them, at the end
of his hard day's work, he found them for the most part
indifferent to his good news, largely inclined to make a
mock of him, in some cases definitely disposed to obstruct
and molest him.

It would seem that he did not scrutinize this apathy or
examine this antagonism. He was too young in years, too
impetuous in temperament, too absorbed in the truth of his
doctrine for calm and dispassionate reflection. Social
wrongs presented themselves to his eyes, but not pressingly
to his political conscience. Many years were to pass over
his head before he admitted the political question to his
mind and transformed it into a religious question. For
the present he was a preacher of conversion, those who
heard him had the power either to decide for God or to
decide for the Devil — his business was to declare the truth
and leave the rest with heavenly Powers.

One perceives that if he had been more strictly, rigidly,
and exactly honest w^ith himself — the rarest virtue in the
world, and among headlong and impulsive natures almost
impossible — he would have realized that conversion had
not solved even in his own life all its difficulties and all its
heartbreaking obstructions. He was very poor, in spite
of incessant toil; he was rendered irritable and impatient
by the blank prospect which confronted him; he was often
cast down and utterly dejected by the misery of his physical

78 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

existence. Conversion had saved his soul and sent him out
to save the souls of other people, but it had not eased the
burden weighing on his shoulders, had not cleared the
horizon of banked and minatory clouds, certainly had not
as yet flooded his soul with the peace that passes under-
standing.

But the boy of seventeen, an age when seriousness is rare
and introspection is almost unnatural, stopped on his path
for none of these considerations. His soul was certain of
the one mighty fact that a spiritual change of most won-
derful and divine power is produced by conversion, and his
burning nature, as well as an iron sense of duty, impelled
him forward to declare this Gosnel of God.

He believed in hell, as he believed in hell to the end of
his life, but whether he deliberately and full-consciously
believed that all those who heard him and rejected his
message would perish everlastingly in undying flames we
cannot determine. It would seem that he did not at this
period of his life penetrate below the surface of dogmatic
religion, or trouble himself with any of those dark and
awful mysteries which his practical common sense would
inform him are insoluble to human understanding. He
believed in God. he believed in Satan ; he believed in heaven,
he believed in hell ; he believed that Christ had died to
save sinners, he believed that without conversion no sinner
could be saved — and there his theology stopped. It was
the theology of Wesley, Whitefield, and of George Fox. It
was the theology of the newly-born evangelical school in
the Anglican Church. It was also the theology of an
impassioned boy, headstrong and wilful, who had his living
to get and his soul to save from damnation. Not a whisper
had found its way to his mind of a possible ascent of man
through a long and blood-stained cycle of ages from a state
of animalism to a condition of comparative civilization ;
no blinding realization of astronomical discovery had
startled his soul into the conception of a universe so
appallingly mechanical and so infinitely vast that the m.ind
at first shrinks from it with physical dizziness and a
kind of spiritual anguish. No discipline of literature had
made him sceptical of historical records and suspicious of

V] WHAT HE BELIEVED AT THIS TIME 79

words too big for human experience. No large or general
acquaintance with life had brought him into knowledge of
disabilities of temperament, inhibitions of heredity, the
fatigues of middle age, the necessity for human happiness.
No " calm and critical theology " had paralyzed his soul
with doubts that are a check to enthusiasm, with compro-
mises that are death to self-sacrifice and zeal.

To this youth, slaving for a paltry wage, with the hopes
of a gentleman's life abandoned, all promise of his child-
hood utterly dissipated from before his eyes, the problem
of human existence was simple and emphatic. This earth
occupied the central place in the stellar universe; man,
created in perfection, had chosen sin and had rejected God;
God, in His mercy, had visited and redeemed man; man
had it in his powder, every man, to accept or to disdain that
redemption ; everlasting happiness would be the lot of those
who accepted, everlasting misery the lot of those who
rejected, the Divine mercy. This was his theology, the
theology of his particular Church, the theology of all the
Churches, the absolute and indubitable theology of the
whole of Christendom. But William Booth believed in it
with all the honest passion of his soul, and believing it so
passionately and realistically, how could he go through life
hugging to his soul the certainty of his own salvation,
careless of, indifferent to, the equal certainty of damnation
for all those who did not believe? He was too honest a
man for that, too genuine a realist for such self-deception.

But not yet had his soul seized the fulness of the faith
that was in him. He was very much set upon improving
his worldly prospects; he was perfectly content that the
greater part of his life should be spent in earning money
for his self-support; he was satisfied if he gave his brief
leisure to this work for the Kingdom of God. He differed
from the great majority of his fellow-believers chiefly in
this respect, that so intense was his faith in the blessing and
necessity of conversion, so fixed was his conviction that a
man was " saved to save," that he used every moment of
his leisure to extend the knowledge of this truth. And
because of this " the leading men in the Church gave him
plenty of caution" — afraid that he was ''going too fast."

CHAPTER VI

OBEDIENCE TO AUTHORITY COUPLED WITH THE
DETERMINATION TO ACHIEVE GREATNESS

1845-1848

Wesley Chapel is a building typical of Victorian Method-
ism. A slight concession is made to architecture in the
fagade, which aims in stucco at a Grecian Ionic effect with
fluted columns and a triangular pediment over the portico;
but for the rest everything is severely ordered for useful
service and downright hard work. No effort is made to lay
a spell upon the senses with dim windows, branching pillars,
timbered roof, and twilight aisles conducting to a holy of
holies. Worshippers here are evidently expected to bring
with them their own warmth and tenderness, their own
passionate but invisible sense of beauty, their own mood of
thanksgiving, aspiration, and worship.

Historians of the nineteenth century will probably pay
some attention to this architecture of Nonconformity — this
deliberate eft'ort of the religious conscience to do without
aids, this evident suspicion and dislike of beauty, this rather
hard and insensible insistence on utility. What monuments
exist more eloquent of the stern and pugnacious spirit which
accompanied the middle classes of England from the ruins
of aristocracy to the first foundations of democracy? More
than a touch of the Puritan is in this early Victorian archi-
tecture of Nonconformity; one sees there, visible and proud,
the firm, masterful trade-mark of a practical commercialism.
Not only was a chapel intended to defy the pagan traditions
of architecture, not only was there to be an entire absence
of Popish ornamentation and sacramental imagery, but
advantage was to be taken of every possible contrivance
that bricks and mortar could give for the work of a business-
like and organized religious centre. A chapel was intended

to be not only a place of worship but a place of business.

80

[CHAP. VI] OBEDIENCE TO AUTHORITY 8i

It was no longer merely a humble and obscure dwelling-
place for despised dissenters, but a prosperous and challeng-
ing headquarters of a conquering Church.

In some measure this spirit indicated a return to the
middle ages, when churches were not kept locked and empty
for six days and only dismally opened for a few lugubrious
hours on the seventh, but when they were the scene of many
astonishing festivities throughout the week. The Non-
conformist rightfully regarded with horror the locked door
of the State Church. He determined that his protesting
chapel should be open from week-end to week-end, not for
the wicked festivities of the dark ages, not for the vain
repetition of ritual and liturgy, but for every possible func-
tion which would serve the religious life of the district.

In the case of Wesley Chapel — likely, on account of
William Booth, to be a place of pilgrimage so long as it
stands — one may see very perfectly this spirit of practical
and business-like Nonconformity. The building is lofty and
spacious, with wide galleries, a large central platform for
the minister, a clear view from side to side, and no sugges-
tion whatever of a sensuous purpose. Only behind the
preacher's back are there any seats of obscurity — the free
seats hidden away by the back entrance to which William
Booth's ragged regiment was condemned in the late forties.
But it is under the floor of the chapel, in the basement, that
the spirit of the place most clearly communicates itself to
the visitor. Here, in a rather bad light it is true, and with
no very satisfactory supply of fresh air, are numerous class-
rooms, vestries, offices, and minor halls for meetings, Sun-
day schools, and choir practices. One feels in going from
room to room of this immense basement, penetrating gloomy
corridors, opening endless doors, and passing up and down
flights of stone stairs with iron banisters, that one is ex-
ploring some centre of local government — a town hall or a
court of justice. It is all so entirely different from the
crypt of a church, that one is not in the least surprised to
see men with hats on their heads, or to hear loud voices and
laughter. It impresses one with the sense of a spirit which
is active, thorough, economical, and practical — a spirit
which has no time for celebrating a victory or keeping a

82 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

memorial, so eager is it to drill and marshal ever}^ soldier of
religion for the battle of the present hour.

It was in this great cold barrack of a chapel that the
soul of \Mlliam Booth opened to religious influences. It
was within these bare and chilling walls that he was first
conscious of spiritual w^armth, first feU his life kindled by
the imagination of God. L^ntouched by the beauty of the
Anglican liturgy, utterly unmoved by the innovations of
the Puseyite clergyman of Sneinton Church, this dissatisfied
and unruly 3'outh. this excitable boy interested in Chartism,
found himself quickened into new' and most wonderful life
under the whitewashed ceiling of a Methodist chapel, there
discovered for the first time his possession of a soul. Some-
thing came to him in this chapel which had hitherto not come
to him anywhere — neither in his home nor his church,
neither in the crocus meadows of the Trent nor the stirring
streets of Nottingham. And when the illumination came,
the magic which transformed at the same moment his own
inner life and the whole world surrounding him, he threw
himself with a passionate ardour into the mechanic activities
of this thriving chapel, became one of the workers, pro-
gressed till he was a street missionary, and finally found
himself at the age of nineteen an accredited local preacher.

We have already seen in what manner he was converted ;
it is now our work to study the life of the eager boy as an
orthodox and unquestioning Methodist. On the surface
these years of his existence would seem the most dull and
the least interesting, but in truth they are years of singular
significance to the history of his life. For they w^itness,
almost more than all the other changes in his career, to the
principle of growth and development; they show us that
William Booth grew gradually to be what he was, and that
he was veritably forced into Salvationism by the pressure
of circumstances ; they reveal to us that at the threshold
of manhood William Booth was a disciplined and obedient
member of an organized and earnest sect, a youth only
different from other youths who attended this same chapel
in the capacity of his soul to grow, in the force and power of
his character to increase its eners^ies.

The minister of this chapel at that time was the Rev.

VI] OBEDIENCE TO AUTHORITY 83

Samuel Dunn, superintendent of the circuit, a man of some
scholarship, autocratic, hard, obstinate, and incurably
radical. He was destined to become one of the Reformers
who rent the Wesleyan body in twain, one of the famous
five ministers expelled from the Wesleyan Church on a
question of its government. William Booth spoke always
well of this man, saying that he was kind to him, encouraged
him, helped him: but it was the kindness of a headmaster
to a boy in the second form, the encouragement of a general
to a private soldier, the help which a bishop may stoop to
give to a sacristan or a Sunday school teacher; there was
nothing of warmth and generosity in this kindness; it
was always cold, formal, and aloof. Nevertheless in the
austerity of the minister, his unbending rigidity, and his
severe earnestness, the young William Booth saw something
to honour and respect, something to which he could look up,
and something of which he stood always in a little awe.
And in the services of the chapel conducted by this austere
minister, he got all the warmth, fire, and excitement that
his soul desired.

There were Love Feasts on Sunday afternoons, when
men spoke freely of their religious experiences ; at night
the great chapel, which held at that time eighteen hundred
people, was filled chiefly with working-class members, and
after this service there was a prayer-meeting, free of all
ritual and formality, at which men uttered their supplica-
tions with a fervour and a freedom unknown at the present
time. Conversion was the central doctrine of the Meth-
odists, and at the evening services sinners were invited to
confess their sins, to elect then and there for God, and to
prove the reality of their hunger for Divine mercy by com-
ing inside the communion-rails and there giving themselves
up to Christ. The oratory of James Caughey had given
fresh impulse to this revival of the old Methodist teaching,
and none who worshipped in that chapel was more con-
vinced of the need for conversion than William Booth, none
more earnestly proclaimed this doctrine of the miracle.
Caughey had preached an unforgettable sermon on the words
recorded in St. Mark, " Therefore I say unto you, what
things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive

84 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

them, and ye shall have them " — words whose meaning is
only now coming home to the minds of multitudes of men
with a significance scarcely glimpsed by the American re-
vivalist. Prayer was regarded as the wrestling of a soul
with God ; it did not suffice the Methodists to kneel in decent
propriety, listening to the recital of a printed prayer, or
repeating in low and reverent voice a supplication as familiar
to the mind as the alphabet. This might serve on occasion,
at the fashionable morning service, for instance ; but at Love
Feasts, at certain of the evening services, and at the prayer-
meetings, a fervent and even clamorous supplication led the
way to remarkable conversions.

They believed that conversion was a distinct and in-
stantaneous experience, and that the soul thus converted
received '' the Witness of the Spirit " to the forgiveness of
sins and adoption into the family of God. They believed
also that the converted soul may press forward to a higher
experience of Grace, that known as the state of Entire
Sanctification. A man decisively and instantaneously con-
verted might of course grow cold in his faith, might fall into
sin, might even lapse into the darkness of atheism; but a
man, advancing from conversion and achieving through the
Spirit of God the condition of Entire Sanctification could
become so purified that sin had no mor'e lure for him ; he
was not only saved, he was at unity with the purpose of
his Creator. Therefore at these Love Feasts and prayer-
meetings, not only did men pray that sinners might be
converted, but that they themselves might deepen their
spiritual life, and that they might enter into this blissful
condition of Entire Sanctification and be free of the stain
of sin for evermore.

''They like to dabble!" was one of William Booth's
disdainful remarks in later life concerning those who talk
on the surface of these great matters and never plunge
below to the actual experience of holiness. He was em-
phatic from those early days to the end of his life on this
doctrine of persistent faith, on this d*octrine of Entire
Sanctification. He never changed h-is mind in this respect.
He could as easily have changed his skin as changed in this
belief which had become the verv core of his character.

VI] OBEDIENCE TO AUTHORITY 85

The dangers of this doctrine do not concern us at this
point in the narrative, nor need we defend such a man as
William Booth from the charges of hypocrisy, self-right-
eousness, and spiritual intoxication which odious or foolish
creatures have so often and disastrously associated with
it in their efforts either to exalt themselves or to deceive
their fellow-men. Conversion was preached in Wesley
Chapel, and this conversion was the conversion that turned
a radically bad man into a radically good man, a miracle
visible to all, provable by all. W^illiam Booth, himself
converted, believed in conversion as the only way of en-
trance into the Kingdom of Heaven; and he believed in
Entire Sanctification as the great proof that his spirit was
advancing in holiness.

It was because he found this depth of religious teaching
among the ^lethodists that he gave himself with unquestion-
ing loyalty to their Church. Had there been any other
church in existence which more earnestly proclaimed the
same doctrine, or more fervently practised the same method
of religious propaganda, beyond a question his ardour
would have carried him into their midst. But there was
no other church, and therefore for him this was the veritable
Church of Christ, and he loved it with so great a love that
at the very end of his days he spoke at times of the Wesleys
and the Methodists with a deep, almost w^istful affection.

One might have thought that a nature so strong and
imperative would have found even in youth many points of
divergence in the ^lethodist body, would have been critical
of them, impatient of his elders, scornful of any authority
over him. But so far w^as this from being the case that
William Booth w^as for some time a contented member of a
Class '' led by " an old man who acted as the chapel-keeper,
one known familiarly as Sammy Statham — a genial, fat-
faced, side-whiskered old man who is said to have looked
like an alderman's coachman. On one occasion the minister
of the chapel, Samuel Dunn, wanted a young man to do some
village preaching for him, and mentioned the matter to his
chapel-keeper, then holding his Class. Statham said that
he knew the very man, and summoned W^illiam Booth before
the minister. When he was asked if he thought he could

86 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

preach, Booth repHed confidently that he had been preach-
ing now in the streets for some time. And to this the great
Dr. Dunn made answer, '* By whose authority ? Have I
given you leave? " Instead of revolt William Booth bowed
his head and accepted the rebuke.

He was so far from being a rebel that he hesitated before
the dignity of becoming a regular minister of this Church.
There is no doubt W'hatever that he regarded his preaching
in the streets and his labour among the sinners of Notting-
ham slums as religious duties of his leisure time; that he
considered it the first necessity of his life to earn money,
provide for his mother, and make his ovv'n way in the world.
He was tremendously in earnest about his religious work,
inordinately earnest perhaps; but this great earnestness
was only the earnestness of a good layman. He was poor;
he suffered the deprivations of poverty; and life was em-
bittered by the financial struggle to exist even in the most
humble circumstances. His proud spirit, his ambitious
nature, urged him away from 'this hateful inhibiting poverty;
and if he worked for his Church, and gave almost every
moment of his scant leisure to religious labours, in the busy
hours of his daily life he dreamed of commercial greatness
and success in the world of toiling men.

One of his companions at this time, Walter James of
Sneinton Hollows, remembers walking with William Booth
past Sneinton Church one day, and suddenly being asked
the inconsecjuent question, "Have you no ambition?"
James looked at him, surprised, and asked, '' What do
you mean?" He replied, ''Because I have; I intend
to be something great; I don't mean to belong to the
commonalty."

This desire to accomplish something was ahvays
smouldering in the heart of the youth. He did not
realize that greatness was to come to him in the religious
life which as yet he loved only as one loves a favourite
crotchet. He saw this greatness, to which the qualities
of his nature impelled him, as victory to be wrung after
immense struggle from a hard world — victory and success,
wealth and power, position and honour. Ahvays he would
be a faithful ]Methodist, always he would be a devout and

VI] OBEDIENCE TO AUTHORITY 87

earnest Christian, always he would be a worker for religion ;
but also he would be a man of position and power in the
secular world.

That religion was, nevertheless, the most potent force in
his life is abundantly manifest. A loss which might have
quenched his ardour and driven him into privacy occurred
in his nineteenth vear. Will Sansom died. There were
others among the chapel youths who accepted Booth's lead-
ership, but Will Sansom was the friend of his soul and the
supremest human inspiration of his missionary labours.
And, as it happened, with Will Sansom' s death, the chilling
hand of authority was laid upon William Booth. '' I had
to go forward all alone," he says, " in face of an opposition
which suddenly sprang up from the leading functionaries
of the church." With no Jonathan at his side, and follow^ed
only by timorous youths who looked to him for leadership,
the lad w^ent on with his street preaching, his cottage prayer-
meetings, and his face-to-face encounters with notorious
profligates; using means which startled orthodoxy and in-
venting methods wholly unsanctioned by traditional author-
ity. Moreover, he was ready to sacrifice for his religious
instincts his very means of subsistence, w^as prepared to
kick away from his feet the ladder by which his father had
promised him that he should ascend to riches, and to which
he now clung desperately enough for daily bread.

I have told you how intense had been the action of my
conscience before my conversion. But after my conversion it
was naturally ever increasingly sensitive to every question of
right and v/rong, with a great preponderance as to the impor-
tance of what was right over what was wrong. Ever since that
day it has led me to measure my own actions, and judge my own
character by the standard of truth set up in my soul by the
Bible and the Holy Ghost ; and it has not permitted me to allow
myself in the doings of things which I have felt were wrong
without great inward torture. I have always had a great
horror of hypocrisy — that is, of being unreal or false, however
fashionable the cursed thing might be, or whatever worldly
temptation might strive to lead me on to the track. In this I
was tested again and again in those early days, and at last there
came a crisis.

Our business was a large one, and the assistants were none
too many. On Saturdays there was always great pressure.

88 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

Work often continued into the early hours of Sunday. Now I
had strong notions in my youth and long after — indeed, I en-
tertain them now — about the great importance of keeping the
Sunday, or Sabbath as we always called it, clear of unnecessary
work.

For instance, I walked in my young days thousands of miles
on the Sabbath, when I could for a trifling sum have ridden at
ease, rather than use any compulsory labour of man or beast for
the promotion of my comfort. I still think we ought to abstain
from all unnecessary w^ork ourselves, and, as far as possible,
arrange for everybody about us to have one day's rest in seven.
But, as I was saying, I objected to working at my business on
the Sabbath, which I interpreted to mean after twelve o'clock on
Saturday night. ]\Iy relatives and many of my religious friends
laughed at my scruples ; but I paid no heed to them, and told
my master I w^ould not do it, though he replied that if it were so
he would simply discharge me. I told him I w^as willing to
begin on ^londay morning as soon as the clock struck twelve,
and work until the clock struck twelve on Saturday night, but
that not one hour or one minute of Sunday would I work for
him for all his money.

He kept his word, put me into the street, and I was laughed
at by everybody as a sort of fool. But I held out, and within
seven days he gave in, and thinking my scrupulous conscience
might serve his turn he told me to come back again. I did so,
and before another fortnight had passed he w^ent off with his
young wife to Paris, leaving the responsibilities of a business
involving the income and expenditure of hundreds of pounds
weekly on my young shoulders.

From this incident it will be seen that William Booth
had established himself in the confidence of his employer,
and was first among the assistants of the establishment, a
position remarkable for a youth of nineteen.

He had now made sufficient mark as a missionary to
attract the attention of his minister. Dr. Samuel Dunn
sent for him, and urged him to ofifer himself for the ministry.
William Booth hung back. He says he shrank from the
responsibility. No doubt there were other causes, and in
all likelihood ambition was one of the reasons for his refusal.
I do not mean that he found it difficult to sacrifice any
lingering ambition for worldly success, but rather that he
had so accustomed himself, ** with a long persistency of
purpose," to shouldering^ the responsibilities of his domestic
position that no idea of the ministry had ever presented

VI] OBEDIENCE TO AUTHORITY 89

itself to his imagination. He had his living to get; his
mother was struggling with poverty; the responsibility of
providing for his mother and sisters had been present in his
mind, like a torture, since his thirteenth year. Therefore,
Avhen the Superintendent of the Circuit suggested to the
youth that he should become a minister of the Wesleyan
Church, the thought was so foreign to the drift of his pur-
pose that he could do nothing but refuse. He was asked
for an excuse. He pleaded ill health. The minister, not
to be baffled, sent him to a doctor. The doctor justified
the excuse. He declared that if the young man attempted
the life of a minister he would be done for in twelve months.
" I remember him saying," relates William Booth, '' that
unless a man with a nervous system like mine was framed
like a brute, and had a chest like a prize-fighter, he would
break down."

So the lad continued the daily round of his former
life. He was a local preacher, and went far afield to preach
the gospel of conversion. He worked from early morning
until late in the evening to earn a pitiful wage. He had no
thought in his mind, no other purpose before his eyes, but
to work for his mother and sisters, and use every hour of
his leisure as a layman in the service of Christ.

His eldest sister, Ann Booth, married one of his school-
fellows, then a well-off business man, and went to live in
London. Mrs. Booth and the two other sisters remained
in the smallware shop, working industriously to keep a roof
over their heads. The son William, with the six years of
his apprenticeship drawing to a close, began to look about
him for a fresh start in life.

The position of the family at this period was the position
of William Booth — a hard and deadly struggle to exist.
The golden dreams of Samuel Booth had vanished. The
former comforts and respectabilities of the household had
disappeared. Definitely and decisively, it seemed, this
little circle of humanity had sunk into a dark obscurity
from which it was impossible that they should ever emerge.
Only in the son did the determination to be " something
great " persist ; and the widow and her daughters saw with
something like despair this last hope of their lives wasting

90 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.vi]

his strength and consuming his most precious time in a
quixotic effort to convert the disreputable mob of Notting-
ham to the rehgion of Christianity.

And to WilHam Booth himself it seemed at last that he
was losing time and squandering opportunities. He saw
nothing in Nottingham that offered him any hope.

At nineteen the weary years of my apprenticeship came to
an end. I had done my six years' service, and was heartily glad
to be free from the bitter and humiliating bondage they had
proved. But I was still under the necessity to work, and a
situation had to be sought. I tried hard to find some kind of
labour that would give me more liberty to carry out my aggres-
sive ideas in the way of saving the lost, but failed. For twelve
months I waited. Those months were amongst the most deso-
late of my life. You may say. Where was the Church to which
I belonged ? Where were its rich business members who might
surely have found employment for one who was already giving
promise of a useful life? Yes: well, it was the question we
asked. For no one took the slightest interest in me.

Twelve desolate months in the life of a very exceptional
youth, twelve desolate months at the threshold of his man-
hood; and at the end of them, nothing. It was in those
twelve months that his mother and sisters came nearer to
him; he was cast down, dejected, humiliated, and almost
crushed ; it was impossible for them to look upon this
tragedy of romantic youth unmoved. For there was
William Booth hunting the streets of prosperous Notting-
ham for honourable employment, working by night in the
slums, giving himself on Sunday to the work of the Chapel,
seeking sinners, praying in cottages, visiting the sick and
dying, reading Finney's Sermons and Lectures, studying
the works of Whitefield and Wesley, protesting his faith at
home that God would surely provide for him — and at the
end of twelve months not a door had opened.

" I had to move away," he says : and, like many another
adventurer with empty pockets and a fighting spirit, he set
his face towards London.

CHAPTER VII

LONDON; THE EARLY VICTORLA.NS

1849

London was full of great men and concerned with many
matters of high importance, when William Booth arrived
with his Bible during the autumn of the year 1849. This
work-seeking youth, almost friendless and penniless in the
multitudinous city, was presented with no immediate
opportunity for setting the Thames on fire, could indeed
see nowhere any provision made by w^hich he might even
earn bread enough to keep his soul in his body. If Notting-
ham could cheerfully do without him, London was certainly
able to keep its anvil ringing with no help from his arm.

The times were serious enough. Palmerston, declaiming
the false gospel of a bullying patriotism, was dragging the
nation to the edge of war with France, and perhaps Russia,
over the matter of a Portuguese Jew in Athens; Newman
— with a brilliance and charm of style surpassed only by
his indifference to history and science — was urging the
Anglican Church of England towards a path which led
backward and not forv\'ard; Carlyle was thundering his
gospel of moral earnestness to an age which had lost respect
for authority and was mindful only of commercial earnest-
ness; the ruinous condition of Ireland had brought into
existence the deadliest of all social evils — secret societies
and bands of conspirators who sought to gain their ends
by physical violence; and deep down among the dim and
squalid millions of industrial England, the ignorant,
degraded, overburdened, socially despised and politically
neglected wealth-getters of this troubled England, there was
unrest deeper than ocean and fiercer than flame.

It was an age in which only science held a taper into
universal darkness. Everywhere else that one looked this
darkness reigned and deepened. It reigned and deepened

91

92 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

over religion, which had lost the creative sense of joy,
which was more concerned with w^ords than life, and was
here surrendering to the tyranny of tradition and there
donning the vesture of the ethical philosopher. It reigned
and deepened over the great art of architecture which had
played the traitor to beauty and sold itself with both hands
to utility and vulgar ignorance. It reigned and deepened
over the whole field of politics which was saturated with
corruption and surrounded on every side by the barriers
of privilege. It reigned and deepened over the immense
region of industr}^ where men who made a profession of
religion, side by side with those who more honestly rejected
religion, brutalized and destroyed their fellow-creatures,
using up even the lives of children, in galloping efforts to
lay up treasures upon earth. It reigned and deepened over
the arts of the painter and musician, where a contemptible
ideal of prettiness usurped the appeal of truth, beauty, and
righteous passion. It reigned, too, even in the kingdom
of literature where the revolt of Shelley, the mournful and
despairing classicism of Keats, had yielded room to a con-
ventional and ignoble propriety oblivious of beauty and
fatal to truth. It reigned and deepened, too, over the entire
field of national production and national life — visible in
the ugliness of domestic furniture, in the frightful mon-
strosities of national monuments, in the painful conventions
of respectable society, and in the appalling ignorance, des-
titution, and degradation of the masses.

One looks in vain, even from the giants of that age, for
any recognition of this universal darkness. From the first
page of his Apologia to the last Newman is concerned with
a reconstruction of traditionalism, and says not a single
word either about the progress of science or the ignorance
and suffering of the common people. Macaulay, who
retired into private life at this time, and had just published
the first volumes of his auriferous historv, never wrote one
word which was in the nature of an alarum ; '' he did little,"
says ^lorley, " to make men better fitted to face a present
of which, close as it was to him, he seems hardly to have
dreamed." Tennyson began in a mild and picturesque
manner to suggest the need for social reformation, but he

VII] LONDON: THE EARLY VICTORIANS 93

never wore the mantle of Shelley, and he ended as an honest
obscurantist. Thackeray contented himself by sneering at
the foibles of a very few rich and vulgar people. Dickens,
when he became a reformer, struck his hardest blows at
religious hypocrisy, and ranged himself on the side of a
port-wine philanthropy, which, if it excelled the Bumbledom
of his times, was nevertheless absolutely destructive of self-
respect. Gladstone opposed the Factory Acts. Shaftes-
bury cried out that he got no help from religious people in
his great work for the humanization of industry. Carlyle,
with his gospel of moral earnestness, approached nearer,
perhaps, than any other recognized great man of the times
to the real danger of society, but he cried loudest for those
very qualities and energies of the English character which
were then most actively in existence and most con-
spicuous in stimulating an unsocial individualism. For the
rest, the middle classes were committed to the gospel of
energy, not to the gospel of intelligence; they were hot in
pursuit of riches, perfectly self-satisfied, and only passionate
when a murmur of discontent or any rumbling of threat-
ening storm came to them in their comfortable parlours
from the disreputable under-world of poverty and sin.

They liked to read (says Stopford Brooke) about pain and
trouble in the past ; they hated to read about it in the present.
When suffering was known to be over, and made no claim on
them — to read of it gave a pleasant flavour to their luxury and
to their degraded peace. Therefore they accepted with a barren
gratitude Mrs. Hemans, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, and others
who wrote graceful, pathetic, perfumed stories, and pretty
lyrics about spring and love and sorrow, and little deeds of
valour, and such religion as their society could accept; religion
which promised them in heaven a pleasant extension of their
agreeable life on earth.

Men like Maurice and Kingsley were at work with new
ideas for politics and religion; Ruskin was there, and
Matthew Arnold was coming, with broader and truer notions
of philosophy and art ; George Eliot had a message for those
who needed none; John Stuart Mill was laying the foun-
dations of a more reasonable political economy; Cobden and
Bright were fast preparing the way for a fresher and

94 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap,

kinder outlook on the nations of the world ; but the general
condition of the English people was one of frank materialism
and aggressive complacency, a condition in which the
''obese platitudes" of respectability were accepted as the
highest wisdom and the unspeakable miseries of the poor
were regarded as the judgments of God or the inevitable
fruits of political economy.

It is difficult for a modern mind to conceive truly of
the England of that period. Humanitarianism, which has
become with us, if not a passion and a religion, at least
good manners, was then regarded as the misguided hobby
of a few fussy and mischief -making philanthropists who
turned their backs on the stables of Augeas to plant mustard
and cress on the banks of the cleansing rivers. Little
concern w^as shown by the churches or the chapels for the
bodies of men. No shame was felt for such a term as
** Ragged Schools." There was no system of national
education, factory legislation permitted children to work
for ten hours a day, there was no real inspection of these
insanitary places, no idea of housing reform, no provision
for poverty but the execrable Poor-House. Few agencies
existed for ministering to the physical needs of the poor,
the mental needs of the uneducated, the spiritual needs
of the sunken masses, the most elemental natural needs
of perishing children. Politics had not even glanced at
domestic legislation; the phrase social conscience had not
been invented ; men were satisfied w^ith, accepted as a God-
ordained system of human government, a state of indi-
vidualism which trod millions underfoot for the enrichment
of tens. Such a phrase as " Tory Democracy " would have
had no meaning for Sir Robert Peel, and little meaning,
if any, for the Gladstone of that day. Nearly every sug-
gestion for bettering the condition of the poor was regarded
as blasphemous republicanism and treated with a wrathful
disdain. Tory and Whig desired office for the sake of
patronage, and there was no difference in the blindness of
the one and the other, no difference in the deadness of their
imaginations to the evils of the time. Religion, politics,
art, even literature, struck no blow for justice and advance.
One spirit was at work destined to exert an influence

vii] LONDON: THE EARLY VICTORL\NS 95

on the world more far-reaching, and more revolutionary,
than any which had preceded it; a spirit which has now
overspread the whole world and still shows no sign of abat-
ing its force; a spirit which is at once responsible for in-
finite misery and yet carries with it almost the chief hope
left to humanity — the spirit of mechanical science, the
spirit of practical science applied to the physical needs of
human life.

At the time when William Booth came to London
railways were in their infancy, and the greatest achieve-
ment of manufacturing science was the spinning jenny.
But a new door had been opened on existence. The prom-
ise of riches offered by this new field to ambitious men had
thrown the whole weight of human intelligence on the side
of science; nor did it need any impulse from the thesis
of Darwin to urge men forward on this fresh trail to the
ancient goal of material welfare. Little was now to be
left to Providence, less and less as time went on ; men took
their own lives in their hands and pressed forward on the
road of discovery, seeking everywhere for light on their
path, too eager for the prize to heed voices so distant and
so faint as the voices of faith and tradition.

It was a new world for the human race ; and ancient
precedents lost their authority when the frontier was crossed.
Mechanical science is not so much an enemy to religion as
a rival. ]\Ien not only give their lives but lose their hearts
to this lavish employer of their brains. A Greek counted
himself abased if he permitted his knowledge of science to
be applied to trade ; the English only reverence science when
it serves a physical purpose. And the modern English-
man, surrounded on every side by the multitude of fast
multiplying contrivances of physical science, finds it difficult
to believe that it is not along this path of increasing wonder
and more magic discovery that the generations of men
are destined to travel on the way from the darkness of
Ignorance to the light of Knowledge. From the me-
chanical toy to the bicycle, and from the bicycle to the dy-
namo driving light and power over hundreds of miles,
science offers so potent and possessing a fascination to the
question-asking mind of humanity, so constant and increas-

96 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

ing an occupation for faculties that clamour to be used, so
many and so great services to a physically enfeebled genera-
tion, that the human race, weary of exertion, sceptical of tra-
dition, dulled and exhausted by uninteresting toil, and
eager for amusement, sets here its affections and gives here
its loyalty and reverence.

Stronger than all the other adversaries in the path of
William Booth when he arrived in London was this spirit
of physical science, then beginning to diffuse itself over
the nation. And as we shall presently find, it was a spirit
whose value he failed to see and whose danger he rather
despised than attacked. Not greatly concerned with
Nature, and perhaps even less with literature and art,
William Booth resolutely turned his back upon science, and,
like St. Paul, determined to know nothing but Christ, and
Him crucified. He came to London with the Bible, and
from London he carried that Bible throughout the world.

H any man is tempted on this account to regard him
only as a narrow and an intolerant Hebraist, let it be
remembered that with no mean courage and after no
inglorious battle did he keep his Bible in the streets of
London and carry it to a world-wide victory.

He arrived in London as a seeker of work, the son of
a poor and struggling mother in the provinces, with no
influence, with no money, and with no friends. And at
the very outset of this new adventure in his wayfaring he
was met by one of those tragic disappointments of faith
and affection which deject the courage of the bravest and
embitter the feelings of the kindest.

In the notes made for his autobiography he set down
under the title of '' London " the one word " Loneliness! "
This word stood for infinitely more than that sensation
of solitude and depression which overwhelms a man in
coming for the first time under the cold skies and into the
unfriendly roar of a vast city utterly indifferent to his
existence. It stood, too, for something even more than
what he calls " that sickening impression " produced in the
mind of ''a young enthusiast for Christ" by the manifest
iniquities and thousandfold degradations of a godless
multitude. It stood for tragedy and bitter grief.

vii] LONDON: THE EARLY VICTORIANS 97

There was only one house in London to which he could
go, the house of his eldest sister, the beautiful Ann who
had been an influence for good on his boyhood, and who
had stood by his side in the streets of Nottingham singing
the hymns of those outdoor services. With whatever feel-
ings he went to the house of his beloved sister, he was
speedily brought face to face with disenchantment and
horror. He found that her husband, one of his old school-
fellows, had adopted a truculent agnosticism, was a loud-
voiced and contemptuous materialist, a man who heartily
despised religion, and regarded every species of piety as
so much cant and make-believe. Moreover, he discovered
that this disagreeable person had contracted the disease of
alcoholism, and that he had not only infected his sister with
his odious notions concerning religion, but also with the
destroying germ of his horrible vice. Instead of welcome
and encouragement, he met with ridicule and contempt.
His sister was kind enough to let him argue and plead
with her, but his brother-in-law had not patience enough
even for this amenity. He was coldly treated, contemptu-
ously used, and speedily dismissed. Instead of a happy
and restful home, he found a household overshadowed by
ruin of every kind. The rich brother-in-law, swiftly im-
poverishing himself, was a blacker shadow in that home
than the struggling and speculating Samuel Booth had been
in the darkening home of Sneinton. Signs of approaching
trouble were everywhere visible, and soon both husband and
wife, in spite of all the exertions of William Booth, passed
from prosperity to ruin and presently from ruin to death.

This painful discovery at the first step in London threw
the young venturer into a state of deep dejection. It
deepened to ocean depth his sensation of solitude, and
darkened his horizon with clouds blacker than night. He
was now quite friendless and homeless. No agency existed
to which he could go for assistance, no brotherhood or
society where he could count upon kindness and welcome.
He was solitary in London, solitary and poor, with nothing
but his Bible for consolation. And it was necessary for
him to have bread that he might live, even in dejection and
poverty.

98 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.vii]

He has described his feehngs at this time, not very in-
timately, and perhaps with the preacher uppermost, but the
words afford at least some idea of the difficulties which con-
fronted him :

The sensations of a new-comer to London from the country
are always somewhat disagreeable, if he comes to work. The
immensity of the city must especially strike him as he crosses it
for the first time and passes through its different areas. The
general turn-out into a few great thoroughfares, on Saturday
nights especially, gives a sensation of enormous bulk. The
manifest poverty of so many in the most populous streets must
appeal to any heart. The language of the drinking crowds
must needs give a rather worse than true impression of all.

The crowding pressure and activity of so many must always
oppress one not accustomed to it. The number of public houses,
theatres, and music-halls must give a young enthusiast for
Christ a sickening impression. The enormous numbers of
hawkers must also have given a rather exaggerated idea of
the poverty and cupidity which nevertheless prevailed. The
Churches in those days gave the very uttermost idea of spiritual
death and blindness to the existing condition of things ; at that
time very few of them were open more than one evening per
week. There were no Young Men's or Young Women's Chris-
tian Associations, no Pleasant Sunday Afternoons, no Brother-
hoods, no Central Missions, no extra effort to attract the atten-
tion of the godless crowds. . . .

To any who cared to enter the places of worship, their
deathly contrast with the streets was even worse. The absence
of week-night services must have made any strangers despair of
finding even society or diversion. A Methodist sufficiently in
earnest to get inside to the " class " would find a handful of
people reluctant to bear any witness to the power of God.

One is tempted to ask whether any young enthusiast for
Christ ever stood before a door so fastened and close-barred
as that which confronted William Booth at his first en-
trance into London. Certainly to few men has the future
presented itself with a more hopeless promise, a more
deadly indifference, than it did at this fateful juncture to
this young enthusiast from Nottingham, li ever he
prayed earnestly for light and guidance surely must it have
been at this period, when he stood friendless, all but penni-
less, and with a wounded heart in the streets of London.

CHAPTER VIII

THE CALL TO PREACH
1849

Among the disappointments which met our young venturer
in London was the impossibihty of getting work outside the
pawnbrokery business. He had come now to dislike the
business. He was as yet by no means anhungered and
athirst to be free of secular labour that he might preach the
Gospel of Christ ; at this time he had seen nothing of
London's destitution, nothing of those black depths where
multitudes of human beings perish in darkness and sin;
his experience of London was largely the experience of
respectable and suburban London ; and with this first im-
pression in his mind — he was twenty years of age — his
idea was to preach on Sunday and work for his living dur-
ing the week-day, pushing his fortunes with all his might,
for the sake of his mother and sister, as well as for himself.
But there was no work for him except his old work, and
accordingly into a pawnbroker's shop in Walworth he went
to earn his living. A new experience in religion awaited
him here :

My new master very closely resembled the old one in many
respects. In one particular he differed from him very materi-
ally, and that was, he made a great profession of religion. The
first master was a Unitarian, knowing nothing about even the
theory of godliness. I never remember him uttering a sentence
that showed that he had any saving faith in God or any sym-
pathy with godly people during the whole six years I was with
him. My second master believed in the Divinity of Jesus
Christ, and in the Church of which he was a member, but
seemed to be utterly ignorant of either the theory or practice
of experimental godliness, and as to the spiritual interests of
the dead world around him, he was as indifferent to their future
well-being as were the vicious crowds themselves whom he so
heartily despised. All he seemed, to me, to want was to make
money, and all he seemed to want me for was to help him in
the sordid, selfish task. So it was work, work, work, morning,

99

loo THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

noon, and night. I was practically a white slave, being only
allowed my liberty on the Sabbath, and an hour or two one
night a week, and then the rule was, home by ten o'clock, or
the door will be locked against you. This law was rigidly en-
forced in my case, although he knew that I travelled long dis-
tances preaching the Gospel, in which he and his sanctimonious
wife professed to believe. To get home in time, many a Sun-
day night I have had to run till out of breath, after walking
long distances, and preaching twice in the day.

Some men might easily have been disgusted with religion
in such a circumstance as this, particularly a young man
whose heart was sore with disappointment and weighted
with the difficulties which confronted him; but William
Booth never lost by encountering hypocrisy; he gained
by it; he never made the hypocrisy of others an excuse for
relaxing his efforts, rather was he braced by it to show the
true face of religion to mankind. In an age when there
was almost a vogue of this odious religious hypocrisy, an
hypocrisy so general that Dickens in his struggle to extir-
pate it flung himself into the fight with an impatient ex-
aggeration which delighted the base and confirmed the
feeble in their feebleness — in this age of deception and
self-deception, of formalism, cant, smoothness, and de-
testable complacency, William Booth looked the distorted
falsity in the face and saw only the beauty and glory of
the reality. He deepened his own intense consciousness of
religion by contact w^ith the shallow pretence of a merely
formal and professed religion. The less of truth he saw
in others, the more hungrily he desired it in himself. To
abandon religion, because of false religion in others, never
so much as entered his mind.

But there were difficulties in his path :

My way was complicated, but I stuck to my faith and the
preaching of it as far as I had the opportunity. It is true that
here and there I made friends in my preaching excursions with
whom I fraternized, as far as my little leisure afforded, enjoying
occasional seasons of useful communion. But my poor heart
was desolate in the extreme. It seemed as though I had got
launched out on a wide and dreary ocean without a companion
vessel or a friendly port in view.

Something of his state of mind at this period may be

VIII] THE CALL TO PREACH loi

gathered from a worn and faded document found among
his papers after death, the pathetic and honest confession
of a young soul conscious of its weakness and seeking
strength from a solemn and secret protestation of faith.
This little paper bears the date December 6, 1849, ^^^ pi*o-
ceeds in this manner :

RESOLUTIONS

I do promise — my God helping —

1st That I will rise every morning sufficiently early (say
20 minutes before seven o'clock) to wash, dress, and have a few
minutes, not less than 5, in private prayer.

2ndy That I will as much as possible avoid all that babbling
and idle talking in which I have lately so sinfully indulged.

3rd That I will endeavour in my conduct and deportment
before the world and my fellow servants especially to conduct
myself as a humble, meek, and zealous follower of the bleeding
Lamb, and by serious conversion and warning endeavour to
lead them to think of their immortal souls.

4thly That I will not read less than 4 chapters in God's word
every day.

5thly That I will strive to live closer to God, and to seek
after holiness of heart, and leave providential events with God.

6thly That I will read this over every day or at least twice
a week.

God help me, enable me to cultivate a spirit of self denial
and to yield myself a prisoner of love to the Redeemer of the
world.

Amen & Amen

William Booth.

I feel my own weakness and without God's help I shall not
keep these resolutions a day. The Lord have mercy upon my
guilty soul.

I claim the Blood
Yes, oh Yes,

Jesus died for me.

Faithfully he performed the duties entrusted to him,
making himself not merely useful but almost invaluable to
his slave-driving master, for into everything they do it is
the nature of such men as this to put the whole force of
their powers; but it was only when he was free from the
shop and out in the streets of London on his business of
preaching religion that he really lived, and really hoped.
Weak and delicate as he was, hard and exhausting as was

I02 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

his daily work, he gave himself up on Sundays and his one
spare week-night to such preaching in the London chapels
he visited as startled and shocked the polite congregations
with the strength and fire of its rugged energy. And when
the preaching was over, and he had fraternized for a few
moments with the few who shared his enthusiasm, the
Nottingham lad would take to his heels and run through
the lamp-lighted streets of the suburbs back to the attic-
bed above the shop in Walworth.

The more he saw of London the more insistent became
this desire to preach the religion of Christ. So far as one
can see, it was during these first months in Walworth that
the suggestion made to him in Nottingham a year before
by Samuel Dunn came home to his mind as a real and
definite idea. The spectacle of the London streets, thronged
at night by crowds of people who often appeared before his
vision as godless and vicious and perishing, worked upon
his imagination and quickened the idea that he should
preach Christ, whatever might be the consequences to his
earthly fortunes.

It must be remembered that the great temperance
movement had not struck root at this period, and that the
sights of London streets, particularly in the poorer quar-
ters, were infinitely worse than they are now. Drunken-
ness was not only horribly common, it was every one's
opportunity for hilarity. It provided the humorous inci-
dents of transpontine melodrama in the theatres, and the
only break of cheerful comedy in the sordid tragedy of the
streets. Women might be breaking their hearts at home,
children might be crying pitifully for food and clothing,
but the sight of uproarious men rolling and lurching home
from the ale-house seldom aroused anything but amuse-
ment in those who turned the head to look after them.

And, again, there was no Education Act. The worst of
the narrow, grimy streets of London were thronged with
ragged, barefooted, unwashed, foul-mouthed, and in many
cases criminally-minded children, to save whom neither the
State nor religion made scarcely an effort. The parents
of these children were either the idle rascals of street-
corners, or the sweated and exhausted victims of a con-

VIII] THE CALL TO PREACH 103

scienceless commercialism. A man could go but a little
distance in London without encountering such men and
women, and such helpless little children, as seem degraded
out of the likeness to humanity.

To William Booth the call to preach Christ came in these
London streets, not dramatically and suddenly, but with a
steady and persisting tone of resolute command. He could
not doubt the reality of that call, and his faith would not
let him disobey it.

He has left a record of his feelings on this matter, writ-
ten before he had really looked into the Stygian depths of
the London abyss, and from this record one may discern
how his mind was acted upon in youth by the sights he saw
in suburbs that passed in those days for respectable :

How can anybody with spiritual eyesight talk of having no
call, when there are such multitudes around them who never
hear a word of God, and never intend to ; who can never
hear, indeed, without the sort of preacher who will force him-
self upon them? Can a man keep right in his own soul who
can see all that, and yet stand waiting for a " call " to preach ?
Would they wait so for a " call " to help anyone to escape from
a burning building, or to snatch a sinking child from a watery
grave ?

Does not growth in grace, or even ordinary growth of intelli-
gence, necessarily bring with it that deepened sense of eternal
truths which must intensify the conviction of duty to the perish-
ing world ?

Does not an unselfish love, the love that goes out towards
the unloving, demand of a truly loving soul immediate action
for the salvation of the unloved ?

And are there not persons who know that they possess
special gifts, such as robust health, natural eloquence, or power
of voice, which specially make them responsible for doing some-
thing for souls?

And yet I do not at all forget, that above and beyond all
these things, there does come to some a special and direct call,
which it is peculiarly fatal to disregard, and peculiarly strength-
ening to enjoy and act upon.

I believe that there have been many eminently holy and
useful men who never had such a call ; but that does not at all
prevent anyone from asking God for it, or blessing Him for
His special kindness when He gives it.

The call, at any rate, had come for him. It was a call
from Heaven, and from humanity as well.

CHAPTER IX

A CRISIS IN METHODISM
1850

In the year 1848 dissatisfaction with the government of
Wesleyan Methodism had gathered considerable force.
Men felt that the Wesleyan Conference did not fairly
represent the churches, that this Conference exercised un-
justly a tyrannous despotism over local churches in the
connection, and that salvation lay in a democratic extension
of local government throughout the whole field of Wes-
leyan Methodism. ''The real question at stake was;
Connexionalism or Congregationalism — the supremacy of
the Conference as the final court of appeal, or of the court
of the individual church." Certain Fly Sheets had been
freely circulated among Methodists expressing not merely
dissatisfaction with Dr. Jabez Bunting, who was President
of the Theological Institution, but expressing a very violent
antagonism to the Conference, which was likened to a Papal
despotism. These anonymous and virulent pamphlets did
not halt at " libellous insinuations," and became at last so
fiendishly shameful that authority was bound to interpose.

Wesleyan Methodism was travelling surely towards constitu-
tional change, which would have been brought about in orderly
fashion, had it not been for irritation caused to both sides by
literary productions the spirit of which no one now defends (A
New History of Methodism, vol. i, p. 431).

The Conference decided that every minister should be

required to answer '* brotherly questions " concerning the

authorship of these virulent Fly Sheets. Three ministers,

Samuel Dunn, James Everett, and William Griffith, refused

to answer these questions, and were expelled. " To some

people the three were martyrs to the cause of liberty; to

others they were traitors to their church. There was room

for endless and acrimonious disputes."

104

[CHAP. IX] A CRISIS IN METHODISM 105

Thereupon followed '' agitation and convulsion." The
Reformers, as they were called, rose up to assert liberal
doctrines and free the church from a " Papal autocracy."
The Conservatives marshalled their legions to fight these
traitors and preserve the ancient tradition of their policy.

A large number of secessions from the mother church took
place, some through the breaking up of the local societies to
which the seceders were attached, or in search of the quiet that
could not be found in confusion and worry, others through the
inconsiderate sternness with which in the emergency the regula-
tions and the Conference were interpreted and enforced. Men
who were convinced of the wisdom of important changes in
administration were forced into a false position by the impossi-
bility at the time to concede any change, and could extricate
themselves only by withdrawal. On the whole, the loss of
membership due directly or indirectly to this ill-conceived
agitation amounted in the course of a few years to not less than
a hundred thousand. . . . Others associated themselves with
the expelled ministers, and formed the church of the Wesleyan
Reformers, which afterwards by amalgamation helped to con-
stitute the United Methodist Free Churches . . . (ibid., vol. i,

PP- 438-9)-

Thus a dispute concerning the government of a church,
because of the unlovely spirit in which it had been con-
ducted — " stubbornness, that was neither free from malice
nor wise in its choice of weapons, awakened resentment,
and human nature, being W'hat it is, led inevitably to re-
taliation " — broadened into one of those heresy-hunting
expeditions upon which no church can enter without ex-
haustion and disaster. The simple matter of dispute, as
Sir Thomas Browne has warned all disputants to expect,
wandered at once from the particular to the general; and,
in this case, was '' soon obscured by the publication of a
series of slanders in which little respect was showm for age
or long service or purity of motive." In the end, ex-
hausted by this pitiful conflict, and rent by schism, the
Methodists set themselves to recover the simple faith of
their origin — belief in conversion, and a methodical at-
tention to religious duties.

The Reformers, rightly or wrongly, announced them-
selves as the true children of Methodism, proclaiming the
wisdom of revivals and seeking as the supreme object of

io6 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.ix]

their existence the salvation of sinful and erring men by
the divine miracle of conversion. The orthodox party,
rightly or wrongly, claimed to be the faithful guardians of
Methodism, and kept a watchful eye upon revivals, order-
ing the services of the church with a far more rigid over-
lordship than existed in the Anglican Communion. ]\Ien
tended to one camp or the other according to their temper-
aments, and for many years the separation was so deep
and so wide that few dreamed it could ever be bridged.

Such was the nature of this agitation, and such the con-
dition of the Wesleyan ^Methodist Church, in the year 1850,
when William Booth, slaving: hard to earn dailv bread in
London, was an obscure and discouraged lay preacher in
its ranks, of whom neither the pontifical Dr. Bunting nor
the rebellious and expelled Samuel Dunn — who had been
his own minister in Nottingham — took the least account.

CHAPTER X

TELLS HOW WILLIAM BOOTH BECAME A PASTOR, AND INTRO-
DUCES THE READER TO CATHERINE MUMFORD

185O-185I

The storm of this disputation raged with violence. But
it does not seem to have driven William Booth from his
path or to have drawn him to the one side or the other.
''Mr. Booth," says W. T. Stead, "kept apart from the
controversy. His sympathies were then, as always, on the
side of authoritv."

This statement, which may surprise many people, is a
true statement. William Booth was antipathetic to violent
change, hated rebellion, suspected " reform," and cherished
discipline and obedience as cardinal virtues. His story for
the next twenty years is the tragic Odyssey of a strong
and original soul labouring to follow his star along the
beaten track of authority, struggling to get the new wine
of his unquenchable zeal into the shrunken skins of tradi-
tion, striving to move his church along with him out of the
slough of a stagnant formalism. And the irony of it is, that
the churches which expelled him and literally drove him
into the wilderness, which during the most difficult years
of his existence opposed him, censured him, maligned him,
not only came to adopt his methods and follow his ex-
ample, but, when it was too late, made overtures for his
reception into their midst.

In his old age William Booth was received by King
Edward the Seventh. " Tell me, General," asked the
Sovereign, ''how do you get on now with the Churches?
What is their attitude towards you?"

The old man looked shrewdly at the King, his eyes
twinkled, and he made answer, " Sir, they imitate me."
At which the King laughed with a good understanding.

At the age of twenty-one he was conservative and on

the side of authority. He knew very well what dissension

107

io8 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

existed in the Wesleyan body, but he endeavoured to stop
his ears against the unprofitable sounds of discord.

What was in his mind, seething and burning there, at
this momentous epoch of his hfe? Happily a letter exists,
the oldest known of his letters, which answers that ques-
tion with a fulness invaluable to this narrative. The letter
is dated October 30, 1849, ^"^ is addressed to John
Savage in Nottingham, one of the young men who had
served as a disciple in the streets and slums of that city:

How are you going on ? I know you are happy. I know you
are living to God, and working for Jesus. Grasp still firmer
the standard. Unfold still wider the battle-flag! Press still
closer on the ranks of the enemy, and mark your pathway still
more distinctly with trophies of Emmanuel's grace, and with
enduring monuments of Jesus' power ! The trumpet has given
the signal for the conflict ! Your General assures of success
and a glorious reward ; your crown is already held out. Then
why delay ? Why doubt ? Onward ! Onward ! Onward ! Christ
for me! Be that your motto ... be that your battle-cry . . .
be that your war-note ... be that your consolation ... be
that your plea when asking the mercy of God — your end when
offering it to man . . . your hope when encircled by darkness
. . . your triumph and victory when attacked and overcome by
death ! Christ for me ! Tell it to men who are living and
dying in sin ! Tell it to Jesus, that you have chosen Him to be
your Saviour and your God. Tell it to devils, and bid them
cease to harass, since you are determined to die for the truth !

I preached on Sabbath last — a respectable but dull and life-
less congregation. Notwithstanding I had liberty both praying
and preaching, I had not the assistance of a single *' Amen " or
"Hallelujah" the whole of the service! It is hard work to
labour for an hour and a half in the pulpit and then come down
and do the work of the prayer-meeting as well ! I want some
Savages, and Proctors, and Frosts, and Hoveys, and Robinsons,
here with me in the prayer-meetings, and glory to God we
would carry all before us ! Praise God for living at Notting-
ham every hour you are in it ! Oh, to live Christ on earth, and
to meet you once more, never to part, in a better world.

In spite of a phraseology which may slightly disturb
a later refinement, this letter has a ring of truth which
is worth an infinite amount of prettiness and decorous
restraint. It is the letter of a true man, the authentic cry
of a soul desperately earnest. One can no more doubt this
utterance than one can doubt the Psalms of David. Narrow

X] ON THE STEPS OF THE PULPIT

109

and limited may have been the youth's outlook upon the
world, wild and strange his language, panting and over-
heated his zeal, but never yet did a charlatan so utter his
soul to a friend.

With such a temperament he was destined to suffer the
dark reactions of ecstasy and boundless confidence. There
were moments when his soul was plunged into dejection,
moments when he doubted his call, moments when he was
thrown into despair merely by contact with a shallow cul-
ture or a little theological pomposity.

But again and again the youth threw off the oppression
of this scepticism, felt within himself strong and indubi-
table the call of God. The young man's tragedy was this,
that he felt at his highest moments of ecstasy so boundless
and so utter a gratitude to God for bliss of such incom-
parable rapture that he could not doubt in those moments
of ravishment his power to save mankind by lifting them
up with him into this same region of faith. But when
ecstasy had passed, when the soul had returned to its poor
troubled and shabby tenement of clay, then came the
natural reaction which all idealists experience — the feeling
of exhaustion, the haunting fear that never can one lift
humanity to God, that one is not scholar enough to enter
into controversy w^ith the least of the devils. Was he truly
called? Had God indeed got a work for him to do? Was
he not perhaps dangerously inflated with conceit in this
feeling that he could do something for the Kingdom of
Christ ?

Concerning my pulpit efforts, I am more than ever dis-
couraged. Upon becoming acquainted with my congregations,
I am surprised at the amount of intellect which I have endea-
voured to address. I am waking up as it were from a dream,
and discover that my hopes are vanity, and that I literally know
nothing.

I preached yesterday at Norwood — a dear people. In the
morning " Oh, Lord, revive thy work " was accompanied with
blessings, and in the evening " Jesus weeping over Jerusalem,"
though not attended by pleasurable feelings by myself, yet I
hope went home to some hearts. I saw Clothing done!

Afterwards I had some conversation with one of our local
preachers respecting the subject with regard to which my heart

no THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

Is still burning — I mean the full work. He advises me by all
means to offer myself next March, and leave it in the hands of
God and the Church. What say you ? You are my friend, the
chosen of my companions, the man after my own heart. What
say you ? I want to be a devoted, simple, and sincere follower
of the Bleeding Lamb. I do not desire the pastor's crust with-
out having most distinctly received the pastor's call. And yet
my inmost spirit is panting for the delightful enjoyment of
telling from morn till eve, from eve till midnight, the glad tid-
ings that mercy is free.

Mercy! Have you heard the word? Have you felt its
power? Mercy! Can you describe its hidden, unfathomable
meaning? Mercy! Let the sound be borne on every breeze!
Mercy ! Shout it to the world around until there is not a sin-
unpardoned, a pollution-spotted, a hell-marked spirit unwashed,
unsanctified ! Lentil there is not a sign of the curse in existence,
not a sorrow unsoothed ! not a tear unwiped away ! until the
world is flooded with salvation and all men are bathing in its
life-giving streams !

In April, 1850, he writes to this same friend in Notting-
ham :

But you ask " What is your plan ? " Why, go out to
Australia as Chaplain on board a convict ship. To face the
storm and the billow, and the tempest's rolling wave, and to
preach to the very worst of men Christ's Salvation.

The idea of breaking away from his monotonous toil
and throwing himself into some hard and heroic work
lasted until November of the same year, \vhen we find him
writing to the same friend :

I am thinking of offering for the general work abroad or at
home, where the Church will send me, or where the world hath
need of me. What say you? You know I would prefer the
home work, but the difficulties are so numerous, my ability is
not equal to the task. It is evident, my Superintendent told
me so, that preachers are not wanted.

An incident occurred at this juncture, how^ever, destined
to influence the w^hole course of his after life. Among the
people who listened to his preaching was an enthusiastic
Wesleyan layman of no very lovable and agreeable type,
but nevertheless a man of some character, and one who
knew a great man when he saw him. This Wesleyan lay-

X] ON THE STEPS OF THE PULPIT iii

man was a Mr. E. J. Rabbits, a boot manufacturer in the
Borough, who rose from small things to the position of a
very large and prosperous employer of labour.

In his autobiographical notes, William Booth has left
this epitome of his first patron : *' Self-made man. His
beginning: borrow^ed half-a-crown. ]\Iy last interview
with him : he had just invested £60,000 in good building
estate, the anxieties connected with which, I should think,
helped to hurry him away. 'The care of riches!'" In
that epitaph one has, perhaps, all the biography one needs
of good ^Ir, Rabbits.

This man, strangely enough, for he was altogether and
utterly unlike A\'illiam Booth, was the means which led the
Nottingham lad to abandon a commercial career for the
life of a minister. William Booth — one of the most ex-
pansive, generous, tender-hearted, and affectionate of men
— yielded to the persuasions of this earnest if somewhat
narrow-minded dissenter, and through him came not only
into the ministry of the Christian religion, but into touch
with that gracious and remarkable woman who blessed his
life, stimulated his courage, and mothered the infancy of
the Salvation Armv.

!Mr. Rabbits is not an imposing figure in this narrative,
but one does not know how the rest of the story would have
run but for his sudden and transitory appearance on its
stage. To those who believe that a Divinity shapes our
ends, he must certainlv seem an instrument in the hand of
Providence; and niggardly and half-heartedly as he per-
formed the office assigned to him, he does at least deserve
the recognition, and perhaps the gratitude, if not the love, of
that vast company better for the life of William Booth.

yix. Rabbits was among the Reformers. '' He had been
dissatisfied," says Commissioner Booth-Tucker, " for some
time with what he considered to be the growing coldness and
worldliness of the Orthodox party, and had, therefore,
hailed the present [Reform] movement with satisfaction,
believing that it would lead to a revival of the old life and
fire. He had been present at the first sermon delivered by
I\Ir. Booth in the Walworth Road Wesleyan Chapel. The
latter had launched out in his usual unconventional, earnest

112 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

manner, strikingly in contrast with the ordinary ministerial
style. Some of those present responded heartily, and the
ordinary monotony of the service was disturbed by quite
a brisk fusillade of ' Amens.' Mr. Rabbits was delighted.
He met the preacher at the foot of the stairs, congratulated
him warmly on his sermon, and took him home to
dinner. . . ."

\"\'illiam Booth at this time, it must be remembered, was
weary of his daily work, and more and more inclined to act
upon the suggestion first made to him, as we have seen, by
Samuel Dunn. He had now proved to himself that he had
power as a preacher ; he never walked through a London
street without feeling an impulse towards the pulpit ; and
he could conceive of no life for himself more consonant with
the will of God than that of a Methodist minister.

Mr. Rabbits, in June, 1851, persuaded him to work among
the Reformers, and later on proceeded to settle the business
of his entrance into the ministry. The story of that negotia-
tion, as typical perhaps of the persuader as of the persuaded,
is told by William Booth in the following narration :

Mr. Rabbits said to me one day, " You must leave business,
and wholly devote yourself to preaching the Gospel."

" Impossible," I answered. " There is no way for me. No-
body wants me."

" Yes," said he, " the people with whom you have allied
yourself want an evangelist."

" They cannot support me," I replied, *' and I cannot live

on air."

" That is true, no doubt," was his answer. '* How much can
you live on? "

I reckoned up carefully. I knew I should have to provide
my own quarters and to pay for my cooking : and as to the living
itself, I did not understand in those days how this could be
managed in as cheap a fashion as I do now. After a careful
calculation, I told him that I did not see how I could get along
with less than twelve shillings a week.

'' Nonsense," he said, " you cannot do with less than
twenty shillings a week, I am sure."

"All right," I said, ''have it your own way, if you will;
but where is the twenty shillings to come from?"

" I will supply it," he said, *' for the first three months at
least."

X] ox THE STEPS OF THE PULPIT 113

" \'ery good/' I answered. And the bargain was struck then
and there.

I at once gave notice to my master, who was very angry and
said, "If it is money you want, that need not part us." I told
him that money had nothing to do with the question, that all I
wanted was the opportunity to spend my life and powers pub-
lishing the Saviour to a lost world. And so I packed my port-
manteau and went out to begin a new life.

My first need was some place to lay my head. After a little
time spent in the search, I found quarters in the \A'alworth
district, where I expected to work, and took two rooms in the
house of a widow at five shillings a week, with attendance.
This I reckoned at the time was a pretty good bargain. I then
went to a furniture shop and bought some chairs and a bed, and
a few other necessaries. I felt quite set up, and fully prepared
to settle quietly down to my work. . . .

Three things marked the day that followed the one on which
I shook hands with my cold-hearted master and said Good-bye.
One of which proved itself of no little importance, both to my-
self and the world at large in the years that followed.

1. The first day of my freedom was Good Friday.

2. It was also my birthday, the loth of April.

3. The third, and most important of all, was that on that day
I fell over head and ears in love with the precious w^oman wdio
afterwards became my Wife.

In this episode we have a characteristic example of
William Booth's honesty and impetuous enthusiasm, as
well as a moment's insight into the mind of a business-like
dissenter. Booth was willing to maintain himself as a
preacher of the Gospel for twelve shillings a week. The
astute and practical Rabbits would not hear of such a
sacrifice, and increased the weekly wage to tw^enty shillings.
William Booth abandoned his daily w'ork, threw himself
into the arms of the future, and trusted blindly to God.
Mr. Rabbits made himself responsible for a wage of twenty
shillings a week, limited to a period of three months. For
a sum of tw^elve pounds, then, the founder of the Salvation
Army disposed of his genius and his enthusiasm, and with
no other provision than this for the next three months, and
no provision at all beyond that period, entered the ministry
as a revivalist preacher.

There were certainly few^ preachers among the Methodists
or any other body of Christians more perilously situated

114 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

just then than WilHam Booth. One can imagine this tall,
gaunt, clean-shaven youth, with his long raven-coloured
hair and his stooping shoulders, entering upon his five-
shilling room '' with attendance," looking upon his furni-
ture, and feeling " quite set up," fully prepared, as he says,
to settle quietly down to his work. But there was to be no
quiet for this wayfarer then or afterwards. On the very
first day of his freedom he was to suffer the commotion of
love, was to realize that twenty shillings a week goes but
a little way in domestic housekeeping, and that an assur-
ance of board and lodging for three months is no cheerful
primrose prospect for a young man who is '' over head and
ears in love." Work there was to be for him in this world,
such w^ork as no other man in his generation could perform,
but no peace, no quiet. From that day onwards, even to
the last hour of his life, he was to be opposed by the enemy
of peace and the adversary of quiet, was to face confusion
and darkness, was to stagger under buffetings of misfortune,
was to be stricken to his knees by agony and tragedy, was
to know the piercing anxiety, the bitter distress of a poverty
that increased with his victories and intensified with his
opportunities for serving mankind; these things he was to
know, this burden he was to carry, this work he was to do
in the world, but quiet was never to come near his heart.
He was marked out for suffering, he was chosen for battle
and tempest. But he was to know the love of a '' precious
woman."

Bitter as was to be his first experience of the Christian
ministry, it was coloured by romance, though one may
question whether this hopeless passion of his heart was not
at the time the chief of his woes.

Among the people to whom ]\Ir. Rabbits introduced
William Booth was a family named ]\lumford, living in
Brixton — at that time a somewhat picturesque suburb of
London, more or less fashionable among rich City mer-
chants. A daughter of this house, for whose opinion IMr.
Rabbits entertained a great respect, had expressed admira-
tion of a sermon preached by William Booth as a layman
in Binfield Hall, a small chapel in the neighbouring suburb
of Clapham. situated close to the Swan Tavern of Stock-

X] ON THE STEPS OF THE PULPIT ii

D

well, where the famous racehorse of that name had been
tramed. Air. Rabbits had reported this admiration to the
young preacher, and had arranged that he should make ac-
quaintance with the }^Iumfords. From their first meeting,
both William Booth and Catherine Mumford were con-
scious of a strong liking for each other; but it was not until
he had entered upon the period of study and preparation for
ministry among the Reformers, and on the first day of his
freedom from a secular life, that he fell head over ears in
love with this remarkable woman.

Before w^e tell the story of that love, it is necessary to
say something of the Mumford family.

Mrs. Alum ford, for whom William Booth cherished a
deep affection and a reverence that reacted on his own
character, was a woman whose history, if it could be told
with fulness, would read like a novel written in collabora-
tion by Charlotte Bronte and George Eliot. She was in
many ways a figure of the epoch. From an adventure in
love, full of passion and tragedy, she had passed to a sedate
marriage, and deepened her spiritual life to such a depth
of piety as one finds in Adam Bede. Something of her
love story, told in a style very appropriate to the popular
romances of the period, is to be found in Commissioner
Booth-Tucker's Life of Catherine Booth. He tells us how
she became engaged in youth to a man in her own social
position, who was approved of by her father, Mr. Milward,
and who appeared to be in every respect a desirable
husband.

Her mother had died some years previously. Her father was
one who felt that his duty to his daughter had ended in supply-
ing her temporal needs. The aunt, who kept house for him,
was a being of harsh and unsympathetic material. No doubt
these loveless surroundings helped Miss Alilward to think the
more of her choice, and she fancied herself upon the eve of life-
long felicity. To her friends the match seemed a desirable one,
and had met with unhesitating approbation. The prospects
were brilliant, and the wedding-day had been fixed, when, on
the very eve of her marriage, certain circumstances came to her
knowledge which proved conclusively that her lover was not the
high-souled, noble character that she had supposed him to be;
indeed that he was unworthy of the womanly love and con-

ii6 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

fidence that she had reposed in him. With the same prompt-
ness and decision which afterwards characterized her daughter,
Miss Mihvard's mind was made up, and the engagement was
immediately broken off.

It was in vain that day after day her lover called at the
house, in the hope that he might persuade her to relent. She
dared not trust herself even to see him, lest she should fall
beneath the still keenly realized temptation, and lest her heart
should get the better of her judgment. At length, seized with
despair, he turned his horse's head from the door and galloped
away, he knew not, cared not, whither — galloped till his horse
was covered with foam — galloped till it staggered and fell,
dying, beneath him, while he rose to his feet a hopeless maniac !
The anxiety had been too much for his brain ; and the next
news that Miss Milward received was that he had been taken to
an asylum, where he would probably spend the rest of his days.

The narrative proceeds with an account of Miss Mil-
ward's prostration after this terrible experience, the failure
of doctors to revive her interests in life, the coming of a
Methodist preacher into her neighbourhood, her conversion
and restoration to health, her subsecjuent engagement to
a lay preacher named Alumford, and her marriage to this
gentleman in defiance of her father's command, who turned
her penniless out of his house and forbade her ever to enter
his doors again.

Catherine Mum ford was the only daughter of this mar-
riage in a family of five children. She was a singularly
intellectual and forceful child, responding with heart and
soul to the rigorous and puritanical training of her mother,
disliking novels, delighting in history, expressing vigorous
judgments on such famous characters as Napoleon Bona-
parte — whose brutal and selfish victories she w^ould com-
pare with the more humane conquests of Julius Caesar — and
revealing on every side of her character an unmistakable
predilection for serious things. There was no element of
submission in her response to Mrs. Mumford's training;
nothing in her nature needed to be crushed and distorted
into the semblance of puritanism ; she herself was a born
puritan to whom the true and genuine gospel of puritanism
made unequivocal appeal.

One trait in the childhood of this precocious girl deserves
a particular attention. It might be thought that a nature

X] ON THE STEPS OF THE PULPIT 117

thus stern and sensible would be proof against those little
tendernesses of affection which make childhood so exquisite
and adorable. But Catherine Mum ford had to a singular
degree one of the most amiable of these tender suscepti-
bilities. She was quite passionately devoted to dumb ani-
mals, and could not bear either to see or to hear about
the sufferings of these little brothers and sisters of humanity.
It might also seem that the ineffaceable impression made
upon her mother's mind by the horse that was flogged and
spurred to its death by her madman lover had been trans-
mitted to Catherine Mumford in the form of this singular
sensitiveness to animal suffering. She was, in fact, as the
following incidents narrated by Commissioner Booth-Tucker
will show, in spite of the rigour of her mother's training, in
spite of her own temperamental devotion to practical com-
mon sense, a child who not merely shuddered at pain, but
whose heart was deeply pierced and earnestly moved by
suffering of any kind.

One day, Commissioner Booth-Tucker says, she saw a
prisoner being dragged to the lock-up by a constable.

A jeering mob was hooting the unfortunate culprit. His
utter loneliness appealed powerfully to her. It seemed that he
had not a friend in the world. Quick as lightning Catherine
sprang to his side, and marched down the street with him,
determined that he should feel that there was at least one heart
that sympathized with him, whether it might be for his fault or
his misfortune that he was suffering. . . .

She could not endure to see animals ill-treated without
expostulating and doing her utmost to stop the cruelty. Many
a time she would run out into the street, heedless of every
personal risk, to plead with or threaten the perpetrator of some
cruel act. On one occasion, when but a little girl, the sight of
the cruel goading of some sheep so filled her soul with indigna-
tion and anguish, that she rushed home and threw herself on
the sofa in a speechless paroxysm of grief.

" My childish heart," she tells us, "' rejoiced greatly in the
speculations of Wesley and Butler with regard to the possibility
of a future life for animals, in which God might make up to
them for the suffering and pain inflicted on them here. . . ."

Like her other benevolences, Mrs. Booth's kindness to
animals took a practical turn. *' If I were you," she would say
to the donkey-boys at the seaside resorts, where in later years
she went to lecture, " I should like to feel, when I went to sleep

ii8 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

at night, that I had done my very best for my donkey. I would
like to know that I had been kind to it, and had given it the
best food I could afford; in fact, that it had as jolly a day as
though I had been the donkey, and the donkey me." And she
would enforce the argument with a threepenny or a sixpenny
bit, which helped to make it palatable.

Then, turning to her children, she would press the lesson
home by saying, " That is how I should like to see my children
spend their pennies, in encouraging the boys to be kind to their
donkeys."

If, in her walks or drives, Mrs. Booth happened to notice
any horses left out to graze that looked overworked and ill-fed,
she would send round to the dealers for a bushel of corn, stow-
ing it away in some part of the house. Then, when evening fell,
she would sally forth with a child or servant carrying a supply
of food to the field in which the poor creatures had been
marked, watching with the utmost satisfaction while they had a
" real good tuck in." It is not to be wondered at that the
horses were soon able to recognize her, and would run along the
hedge whenever their benefactress passed by, craning their
necks and snorting their thanks, to the surprise and perplexity
of those who were not in the secret.

Again and again has Mrs. Booth rushed to the window,
flung up the heavy sash, and called out to some tradesman
who was ill-treating his animal, not resting till she had com-
pelled him to desist.

" Life is such a puzzle," she used to say, ** but we must leave
it, leave it with God. I have suffered so much over what ap-
peared to be the needless and inexplicable sorrows and pains of
the animal creation, as well as over those of the rest of the
world, that if I had not come to know God by a personal revela-
tion of Him to my own soul, and to trust Him because I knew
Him, I can hardly say into what scepticism I might not have
fallen."

On one occasion, when driving out with a friend, Mrs. Booth
saw a boy with a donkey a little way ahead of them. She
noticed him pick up something out of the cart and hit the donkey
with it. In the distance it appeared like a short stick, but to her
horror she perceived, as they drove past, that it was a heavy-
headed hammer, and that already a dreadful wound had been
made in the poor creature's back. She called to the coachman
to stop ; but before it was possible for him to do so, or for those
in the carriage with her to guess what was the matter, she had
flung herself, at the risk of her life, into the road. Her dress
caught in the step as she sprang, and had it not been torn with
the force of her leap, she must have been seriously injured, if
not killed. As it was, she fell on her face, and was covered
with the dust of the hot and sandy road. Rising to her feet,

X] ON THE STEPS OF THE PULPIT 119

however, she rushed forward and seized the reins. The boy
tried to drive on, but she clung persistently to the shaft, until
her friends came to her assistance. After burning words of
warning, followed by tender appeals of intercession, such as
from even the hard heart of the donkey-driver would not easily
be effaced, she at last induced him to hand over his hammer,
and succeeded in obtaining his name and address. Then, over-
come with excitement and exertion, she fainted away, and was
with difficulty carried home.

Another storv is told of how a favourite retriever of
hers, named W'aterford, who loved her and followed her
wherever she went, hearing her cry one day, sprang to her
rescue through a large glass window, thus incurring the
wrath of Mr. Mum ford, who had the dog shot. " For
months," says Catherine Mumford, '' I suffered intolerably,
especially in realizing that it was in the effort to alleviate
my sufferings the beautiful creature had lost its life. Days
passed before I could speak to my father. . , ."

There was a love episode in the life of Catherine Mumford
which she decided by a text from the Bible, Be ye not
unequally yoked together with unhelievers. The lover was a
cousin from Derbyshire, " a young man of somewhat
striking appearance, and w^ith more than ordinary capac-
ity " ; and although *' she w^as not the most ardent of the
two, she could not prevent her heart responding in some
measure to his love." But he was not serious enough
about religion, and Catherine Mumford presently dismissed
him, a step which she says cost her '' a considerable effort
at the time."

She was a delicate child, and for some years had suffered
from a spinal complaint, making painful acquaintance in
the most fervorous period of youth with mattress and sofa.
But she was devotedly nursed by her mother; she pursued
her studies in history and geography; she read an immense
amount of contemporary theology, and acquired an en-
thusiasm for missionary enterprise and a passion for
spiritual religion which deepened to a very striking and
saint-like devotion in her wonderful after life.

When \\^illiam Booth crossed her path she was an able,
masterful, and brilliant young woman, who delighted in
table controversies, who was somewhat proud of her logical

I20 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

adroitness, and who must have been, one thinks, as great
a terror to the loose thinkers and careless talkers of her
little circle as William Gladstone in a more exalted sphere.
It is tolerably certain that she was improved, and very
deeply improved, by her intimacy with William Booth.
There w^as something in her mind, at this period, too like
the self-assertiveness of an intellect rejoicing in its own
trenchant dexterity to promise sweetness and light. She
was able, brilliant, daring, and righteous to a fault; but
one doubts if her heart at that time had asserted its equal
partnership with her brain. Something of this brilliant
young person's character, and her original genius, may be
seen in a letter w^hich she sent to a minister w^ho had
preached a sermon with which she disagreed. The modesty
of the approach does not minimise the force and vigour
of the attack; and certainly such views in the 'fifties were
unusual, and in a girl of her age remarkable enough to draw
attention.

Dear Sir — You will doubtless be surprised at the receipt of
this communication, and I assure you it is with great reluctance
and a feeling of profound respect that I make it. Were it not
for the high estimate I entertain both for your intellect and
heart, I would spare the sacrifice it costs me. But because I
believe you love truth, of whatever kind, and would not will-
ingly countenance or propagate erroneous views on any subject,
I venture to address you.

Excuse me, my dear sir ; I feel myself but a babe in compari-
son with you. But permit me to call your attention to a subject
on which my heart has been deeply pained. In your discourse
on Sunday morning, when descanting on the policy of Satan in
first attacking the most assailable of our race, your remarks
appeared to imply woman's intellectual and even moral inferior-
ity to man. I cannot believe that you intended it to be so under-
stood, at least with reference to her moral nature. But I fear
the tenor of your remarks would too surely leave an impression
on the minds of many of your congregation, and I for one can-
not but deeply regret that a man for whom I entertain such a
high veneration should appear to hold such views derogatory
to my sex, and which I believe to be unscriptural and dishon-
ouring to God.

Permit me, my dear sir, to ask whether you have ever made
the subject of woman's equality as a being the matter of calm
investigation and thought? If not, I would, with all deference,

X] ON THE STEPS OF THE PULPIT 121

suggest it as a subject well worth the exercise of your brain,
and calculated amply to repay any research you may bestow
upon it.

So far as Scriptural evidence is concerned, did I but possess
ability to do justice to the subject, I dare take my stand on it
against the world in defending her perfect equality. And it is
because I am persuaded that no honest, unprejudiced investiga-
tion of the sacred volume can give perpetuity to the mere as-
sumptions and false notions which have gained currency in
society on this subject, that I so earnestly commend it to your
attention. I have such confidence in the nobility of your nature
that I feel certain neither prejudice nor custom can bhnd you
to the truth, if you will once turn attention to the matter.

That woman is, in consequence of her inadequate education,
generally inferior to man intellectually, I admit. But that she
is naturally so, as your remarks seem to imply, I see no cause
to believe. I think the disparity is as easily accounted for as
the difference between woman intellectually in this country and
under the degrading slavery of heathen lands. No argument,
in my judgment, can be drawn from past experience on this
point, because the past has been false in theory and wrong in
practice. Never yet in the history of the world has woman
been placed on an intellectual footing with man. Her training
from babyhood, even in this highly-favoured land, has hitherto
been such as to cramp and paralyse rather than to develop and
strengthen her energies, and calculated to crush and wither her
aspirations after mental greatness rather than to excite and
stimulate them. And even where the more directly depressing
influence has been withdrawn, the indirect and more powerful
stimulus has been wanting. -

A few months older than William Booth and his superior
in intellectual force, Catherine Mum ford was his junior in
spiritual experience, and at that time his inferior in person-
ality. He lacked the culture which she brought to him
with a fervent admiration for his rugged, rock-hewn
strength; she lacked that boundless depth of self-sacrificing
love, that wide and overflowing ocean of yearning, pitying,
human affection which was the gift he brought to her, and
the human influence which made her in after years " the
Mother of the Army." One would say that while Catherine
Mum ford's tendency might have been towards a central
anxiety concerning the condition of her own soul, William
Booth's obvious path of development was tow^ards a central
anxiety for the souls of all mankind. Catherine Mumford,

122 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.x]

as a woman and an invalid, in spite of a genuine desire to
spread her knowledge of conversion, would almost certainly
have remained an interesting and powerful figure in a
group of earnest sectarian Christians, but for the en-
franchisement and the impulse towards humanity brought
into her sheltered life by this rough-wrought son of sorrow
and distress. In a certain measure William Booth came
into the life of Catherine Mumford as Robert Browning
came into the life of Elizabeth Barrett. In each case there
was a resurrection of the woman, and a beauty added to
the man.

CHAPTER XI

THE BEGINNINGS OF A LOVE STORY

1852

William Booth met Catherine Mumford for the first time
when he was still a lay preacher. Mr. Rabbits gave a large
party at his house one afternoon to which Mrs. and Miss
Mumford were invited, and at which William Booth made
a late arrival. No sooner did the young man make his
appearance — a romantic appearance, one conjectures, at
this respectable tea-party — than Mr. Rabbits seized upon
him and insisted that he should recite a terrible American
poem concerned with drunkenness. William Booth ob-
jected. He did not want to recite. He did not want to
be forced into prominence. He protested that the piece
was not in the key of social festivity. But the irrepres-
sible Mr. Rabbits, who had heard him recite this same piece
with great effect some few days previously, would take no
denial. And so William Booth occupied the central place
in that crowded drawing-room, and declaimed American
poetry.

The recitation had a very awkward effect. It started a
controversy. The guests of Mr. Rabbits were by no means
convinced of the virtue of teetotalism. They saw con-
siderable danger in the advocacy of so stringent a gospel;
they declared themselves in favour of temperance and mod-
eration. Suddenly into the midst of this disturbing dis-'
cussion came Catherine Mumford, with a downrightness
of opinion, a logic unmatched in that room, and a searching
analysis troublesome, one imagines, at a tea-party, and
sided entirely with William Booth.

This was their first meeting, marked by an alliance in
battle. He saw her again, more than once, and was in-
creasingly impressed by her force of character, the purity
of her faith, and her instinct for worship. He respected

her, and no doubt she was one of those who unwittingly

123

124 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

discouraged his " pulpit efforts " by the extent and quality
of her intellect.

On that day, the day upon which he finally relinquished
his business career for the ministry, the first day of his
freedom, he once more encountered Miss Mum ford, and
again through the intervention of Mr. Rabbits. The day
was the loth of April, 1852, Good Friday, his own birthday,
and the day on which his great aspiration had come to
reality.

Mr. Rabbits caught him at the moment of his starting
off to pay a visit, and insisted that he should go with him
to a service of the Reformers in a schoolroom situated in
Cowper Street, City Road. Somewhat against his will.
Booth consented, and in the schoolroom once more encoun-
tered Catherine Mumford. It was a fateful meeting. At
the conclusion of the service he escorted this wonderful
young creature to her home in Brixton, and on that journey
both the man and the woman knew that they loved each
other.

It was one of those fallings in love which are as instan-
taneous as they are mutual, which are neither approached
nor immediately followed by any formal declaration of
affection, and which manifest themselves even in the midst
of conversations altogether absorbed in other matters. Sud-
denly William Booth knew that he loved this woman ; and
at the same moment the woman knew that for her there
could be no other man. They compared notes afterwards,
and confirmed their instinctive supposition ; but at the time
no word was said leading to the possibility of such a com-
parison of feelings.

And what follows is one of the most remarkable and
charming love stories in the world — the love story of a man
and a woman in whose hearts an extraordinary sense of
religion had the uppermost place, to whom everything
secular and human had a divine relativity, for whom God
and His worship were the sovran ends of their existence.
It is, in a way, a ]\Iethodist love story. Passion was there,
deep and abiding, but passion restrained by duty and con-
secrated by devotion. An immense reverence for the
woman characterized the love of the man, and a deep self-

XI] THE BEGINNINGS OF A LOVE STORY 125

sacrificing faith in the man and his destiny characterized
the love of the woman.

On the very threshold of this great love the man v^as
brought face to face with hard necessity. His position was
insecure; his worldly prospect could not well be blacker.
For, to begin with, he was only an irregular minister; his
miserable wage was guaranteed to him only for three
months; and the more he saw of the Reformers the less
he liked them. It tortured him to decide whether he might
openly and frankly confess his love for this woman who
was openly and frankly his friend. Dare he take that step ?
Yes. But ought he to take that step ? Who should decide ?

He prayed, and indeed agonized, over that question.
The answer was uncertain, and his action was uncertain.
Without positively declaring his love, he hinted to his
friend this distress which haunted his thoughts. He made
it clear to her that God must have his life, but asked, piti-
fully enough, and with much burning eloquence, whether he
might rightfully look for companionship on his troubled
road.

Catherine Booth has described the difficulties of that
period, from the evening when William Booth accompanied
her home after the meeting in the City Road :

That little journey will never be forgotten by either of us.
It is true that nothing particular occurred, except that as W.
afterwards expressed it, it seemed as if God flashed simulta-
neously into our hearts that affection which afterwards ripened
into what has proved at least to be an exceptional union of
heart and purpose and life, and which none of the changing
vicissitudes with which our lives have been so crowded has
been able to efface.

He impressed me.

I had been introduced to him as being in delicate health,
and he took the situation in at a glance. His thought for me,
although such a stranger, appeared most remarkable. The
conveyance shook me; he regretted it. The talking exhausted
me; he saw it and forbade it. And then we struck in at once
in such wonderful harmony of view and aim and feeling on
varied matters that passed rapidly before us. It seemed as
though we had intimately known and loved each other for years,
and suddenly, after some temporary absence, had been brought
together again, and before we reached my home we both sus-

126 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

pected, nay, we felt as though we had been made for each
other, and that henceforth the current of our Hves must flow
together.

It was curious, too, that both of us had an idea of what we
should require in the companion with whom we allied ourselves
for life, if ever such an alliance should take place.

Singular to say, W. had formed very similar notions, and
here we were thrown together in this unexpected fashion,
matching these pre-conceived characters, even as though we
had been made to order !

My mother invited W. to stay the night. He was, so far,
without any home. He had purposed to stop at his cousin's.
Instead of that he had got into this meeting, and from this
meeting had come on with me. What a strange providence !
It seemed so to me.

No doubt we drew each other out, and the conversation was
lively and interesting, and my mother listened, and had her say,
and before we parted she was nearly as interested in him as I
was myself, but still nothing was said about the future. . . .

W. went away in a terrible controversy, feeling that he
was wounded, and he has often told me since that he felt that
for the first time he had met the woman who filled up his life's
ideal of what a wife should be. He was really in love, and yet
it was all contrary to the plans he had made. Had he not,
only the day before, been able to get away from the business
yoke that had galled him for these eight years gone by? Was
there not the opportunity now for him to obtain the qualifica-
tions that he was convinced he required so grievously for the
mighty work that was before him? Had he not resolved that
for years to come he v/ould neither look to the right nor to the
left, but go straight forward until he had fitted himself to be a
good minister of Jesus Christ? ^Moreover, what could he do
with a wife? The little societv with whom he had been com-
missioned to labour was only a mere handful of mostly work-
ing men that might not hold together for six months, and even
if it did, might not want him beyond that time — even if the>"
wanted him at all — of which he was not sure, knowing that,
but for ^Ir. Rabbits, he would not have been there at all. So
what business had he thinking about a wife or anything of the
kind? His work seemed to be to go on and make himself a
nest before he sought a mate.

And yet, there was the awkward fact staring him in the
face, and although he said to himself as he walked away from
that door that morning, " It cannot, must not, shall not be,"
it was not many hours before he found himself at that door
again. W'^e soon discovered what our mutual feelings were,
and resolved that nothing should be done in haste ; in short,
until we were fully persuaded in our own minds.

xr] THE BEGINNINGS OF A LOVE STORY 127

A period was fixed during which time we were to seek Divine
guidance. I had ahvays entertained very strong views as to the
sanctity of such engagements, views which W. considered very
strict. I regard a betrothal as a most sacred act. That having
once mutually decided on an engagement to be terminated with
marriage, it was a very serious offence against God, and against
the human heart, for any violation of such promises to take
place.

I made W. understand what my views were, and refused
what would be deemed even the most trifling familiarities be-
tween young people until he was perfectly satisfied and decided
on the propriety of our future union.

This made the matter more serious still, and again he went
forth to seek for advice from those who knew me, and to pray
that God would show him whether in the peculiar circumstances
in which he was placed it was His will that the union should
take place. I said as to time I had no choice. If we never are
married, very well. If circumstances never justified it, I am
perfectly content that we should remain single for ever ; but,
single or married in body, we must be perfectly united in heart.
Amongst the ways in which W. sought to obtain light was the
old-fashioned one of opening the Bible and receiving the first
passage on which the eye fell as the interpretation of God's
pleasure, and this instance was rather curious, his eye falling
upon,.

" And the two sticks became one in my hand."

However, this controversy could not go on for ever with
two such hearts as ours, and consequently we came to the
conclusion and covenanted that come weal or woe we would
sail life's stormy seas together, and on our knees we plighted
our troth before the Lord.

Wq have heard a deal of criticism on our principles of
marriage in the Salvation Army, but here was a marriage
virtually contracted on the same principles, foreshadowing all
that we have embodied in our S. A. form of marriage. The
purpose and end of it, I am sure, was the glory of God and the
highest interests of the human race. . . .

The reality of the lovers' struggle, the stern force and
rigid honesty of what they describe as their " controversy,"
may be seen from the letters of Catherine Mumford, which
were written to William Booth in those early weeks of their
intimacy. This controversy, as the reader will have seen,
turned on the cjuestion whether they ought to consider
themselves as engaged, or whether they should rest content
with a Platonic friendship.

128 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

My DEAREST William — The evening is beautifully serene
and tranquil, according sweetly with the feelings of my soul.
The whirlwind is past and the succeeding calm is in proportion
to its violence. Your letter — your visit have hushed its last
murmurs and stilled every vibration of my throbbing heart-
strings. All is well. I feel it is right, and I praise God for
the satisfying conviction.

Most gladly does my soul respond to your invitation to give
myself afresh to Him, and to strive to link myself closer to you,
by rising more into the image of the Lord. The nearer our
assimilation to Jesus, the more perfect and heavenly our union.
Our hearts are now indeed one, so one that division would be
more bitter than death. But I am satisfied that our union may
become, if not more complete, more divine, and, consequently,
capable of yielding a larger amount of pure unmingled bliss.

The thought of walking through life perfectly united, to-
gether enjoying its sunshine and battling its storms, by softest
sympathy sharing every smile and every tear, and with thorough
unanimity performing all its momentous duties, is to me ex-
quisite happiness; the highest earthly bliss I desire. And who
can estimate the glory to God, and the benefit to man, accruing
from a life spent in such harmonious efifort to do His zvillf
Such unions, alas ! are so rare that we seldom see an exempli-
fication of the divine idea of marriage.

If, indeed, we are the disciples of Christ, " in the world we
shall have tribulation " ; but in Him and in each other we may
have peace. If God chastises us by affliction, in either mind,
body, or circumstances, it will only be a mark of our disciple-
ship ; and if borne equally by us both, the blow shall not only
be softened, but sanctified, and we shall be able to rejoice that
we are permitted to drain the bitter cup together. Satisfied
that in our souls there flows a deep undercurrent of pure
affection, we will seek grace to bear with the bubbles which
may rise on the surface, or wisdom so to burst them as to
increase the depth, and accelerate the onward flow of the pure
stream of love, till it reaches the river which proceeds out of the
Throne of God and of the Lamb, and mingles in glorious har-
mony with the love of Heaven.

The more you lead me up to Christ in all things, the more
highly shall I esteem you; and, if it be possible to love you
more than I do now, the more shall I love you. You are always
present in my thoughts.

My dear William — I ought to be happy after enjoying
your company all the evening. But now you are gone and I am
alone, I feel a regret consonant with the height of my enjoy-
ment. How wide the difference- between heavenly and earthly
joys! The former satiate the soul and reproduce themselves.

XI] THE BEGINNINGS OF A LOVE STORY 129

The latter, after planting in our soul the seeds of future griefs
and cares, take their flight and leave an aching void.

How wisely God has apportioned our cup. He does not give
us all sweetness, lest we should rest satisfied with earth; nor
all bitterness, lest we grow weary and disgusted with our lot.
But He wisely mixes the two, so that if w^e drink the one, we
must also taste the other. And, perhaps, a time is coming when
we shall see that the proportions of this cup of human joy and
sorrow are more equally adjusted than we now imagine — that
souls capable of enjoyments above the vulgar crowd can also
feel sorrow in comparison with which theirs is but like the
passing April cloud in contrast with the long Egyptian
night. . . .

But I have rambled from what I was about to write. I find
that the pleasure connected with pure, holy, sanctified love
forms no exception to the general rule. The very fact of loving
invests the being beloved with a thousand causes of care and
anxiety, which, if unloved, would never exist. At least, I find
it so. You have caused me more real anxiety than any other
earthly object ever did. Do you ask why? I have already
supplied you with an answer ! . . . Don't sit up singing till
twelve o'clock after a hard day's ivork. Such things are not
required by either God or man; and remember you are not
your owm !

My dearest love, beware how you indulge that dangerous
element of character — amhition. Misdirected, it will be ever-
lasting ruin to yourself and, perhaps, to me also. Oh, my love,
let nothing earthly excite it, let not self-aggrandisement fire it.
Fix it on the Throne of the Eternal, and let it find the realiza-
tion of its loftiest aspirations in the promotion of His glory, and
it shall be consummated with the richest enjoyments and
brightest glories of God's own Heaven. Those that honour
Him He will honour, and to them who thus seek His glory
will He give to rule over the nations, and even to judge angels,
who, through a perverted ambition, the exaltation of self in-
stead of God, have fallen from their allegiance and overcast
their eternity with the blackness of darkness for ever.

I feel your danger. I could write sheets on the subject, but
my full soul shall pour out its desires to that God who has
promised to supply all your need. In my estimation, faithful-
ness is an indispensable ingredient of all true friendship. How
much more of a love like mine ! You say, " Reprove — advise
me as you think necessary." I have no reproofs, my dearest,
but I have cautions, and I know you will consider them.

Do assure me, my own dear William, that no lack of energy
or effort on your part shall hinder the improvement of those

130 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

talents God has intrusted to you, and which He holds you
responsible to improve to the uttermost. Your duty to God,
to His Church, to me, to yourself, demands as much. If you
really see no prospect of studying, then, I think, in the highest
interest of the future, you ought not to stay.

I have been revolving in my mind all day which will be your
wisest plan under present circumstances, and it appears to me
as you are to preach nearly every evening, and at places so wide
apart, it will be better to do as the friends advise, and stop all
night where you preach. Do not attempt to walk long distances
after the meetings. With a little management and a good deal
of determination, I think you might accomplish even more that
w'ay as to study than by going home each night. Do not be
over-anxious about the future. Spalding will not be your final
destination, if you make the best of your ability.

Catherine Mumford's Reminiscences ^ tell the rest of the
story :

Life now to me assumed altogether another aspect. I have
already intimated the very high estimate I had formed of the
importance of the position to which I now seemed fairly des-
tined. The idea of the possibility of becoming a wife and a
mother filled my life with new responsibilities, but the thought
of becoming a Minister's wife made the w'hole appear increas-
ingly serious. I assumed in imagination all these responsibil-
ities right away, even as though they had already come, and at
once set myself, with all my might, to prepare to meet them.
I added to the number of my studies, enlarged the scope of my
reading, wrote notes and made comments on all the sermons
and lectures that appeared at all worthy of the trouble, started
to learn shorthand in order that I might more readily and fully
correspond with W., and in other ways stirred up the gift that
was in me to fit myself the better to serve God and my gen-
eration.

I think this would have been one of the happiest periods
of my life but for the gloomy view W. was apt to take of our
circumstances. In looking back on this time, I often think of
the saying that I have heard W. quote in these later times, that
three-fourths of the troubles that cause us the greatest suffering
never happen. Or, in other words, had we more perfectly
learnt the divine lesson, " Sufficient unto the day is the evil
thereof," the realisation of this truth might have modified
many of the gloomy forebodings which marred the beginning
of our acquaintance.

I was very delicate ; in fact, little better than a confirmed

1 Some autobiographical notes of a more or less fragmentary nature
which were never published.

XI] THE BEGINNINGS OF A LOVE STORY 131

invalid, and he was afraid that my strength would never stand
the strain and hardship involved in such a life as I imagined
that of a Preacher's wife ought to be. Moreover, his pathway-
seemed so hedged in and blocked up, and he could not see how
he was going to reach any ministerial position which would
enable him to obtain for me that care and help without which
he could not see how it was possible for me to live in any degree
of comfort ; and over and over again he would say that he would
never take me into any position in which I should be likely to
be less comfortable and cared for than in my own home.

The discipHne of the Reform Society was very unsatisfactory
to us both, in denying the Minister what we considered was his
proper authority. The tendency of human nature to go to
extremes found ample illustration in this particular. From
making the ^linister everything, treating him with the pro-
foundest respect, receiving his word as law, putting him almost
in the place of God Himself — they went over to regard him
as nothing, denying him every shadow of authority, and only
allowing him to preside at their meetings when elected for this
purpose, and speaking of him in public and private as their
" hired " preacher.

In W.'s case it was worse than this. The leader of the local
movement with which he was connected, not only denied him
anything like the position of a leader, but refused to give him
reasonable opportunities for preaching. They simply dealt
with him as a cypher, doubtless feeling that, did they give him
any sort of a position, he would earn for himself the leadership
which they were determined to keep to themselves.

We both saw that these relations were too strained and un-
natural to last very long ; accordingly, at the end of the three
months, for which Mr. R. had engaged him in the first instance,
and for which he remunerated him out of his own purse, the
connection was dissolved.

The lookout now was gloomy enough, not that I was any way
anxious about it. I felt quite certain that God would interfere
on our behalf, and that W. possessed gifts which would only
have to be exercised to become known, and which being known
would win for him all those opportunities for usefulness for
which his soul so strongly yearned.

It was at this time, when the way to the Ministry seemed
totally closed in the Methodist direction, that W.'s attention
was turned to the Congregational Church. I think this was
my doing ; indeed, I know it was ; but, until he came to this dead
stop, he would never hear of it, and even now his difficulties
appeared almost insurmountable. To leave ^lethodism seemed
an impossibility. His love for it at that time amounted almost
to idolatry. . . .

Although I could sympathize with all this, and had a fair

132 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

share of love for the Church to which I also owed much and in
which I had experienced a great deal of blessing, still, I had
nothing like his blind attachment. For one reason, I had not
been actively engaged. Mine had been more the position of a
spectator; and, moreover, I argued that, once settled in a
Congregational pulpit, he could impart into his services and
meetings all that was good and hearty and soul-saving in
IMethodism ; at least, I thought he could, and consequently, I
pressed him very strongly to seek an open door for the exercise
of his ^Ministry among the Independents.

He was slow to accept my counsel. He had formed a very
lofty notion of the intellectual and literary status of the Body,
and was fearful that he was not equal in these respects to meet
what would be required of him. But I was just as confident
as he was fearful. I felt sure that all that was wanted by him
was a sphere, and that once gained, I saw no difficulty in his
being able to organize a church of workers, and make them into
Methodists in spirit and practice, whether they were such in
government or no.

Perhaps I was very simple in these notions ; I had little or
no experience at that time as to the difficulty of over-ruling the
prejudices and changing the customs which had been handed
down from generation to generation. However, I was young
and sanguine, and already had come to have considerable faith
in the enthusiastic energy and devotion of my beloved, and I
thought if he could once get into the leadership anywhere, he
could carry the people whithersoever he would.

With such reasonings as these, and seeing that there was no
other way by which he could reach the sphere to which his
soul believed God had called him, he gave in, and resolved to
seek an open door for the preaching of Jesus Christ, and the
bringing lost sinners to God amongst the Congregationalists.

I cannot very well remember how he went about seeking this
open door. A\'e had not, so far as I remember, a single
friend who had any influence either with the Independents or
with any other Christian Church as far as that goes. We at
first cut ourselves off from the friendships of our youth when
we left the Wesleyans, and now we had turned our backs upon
the little handful with whom we had taken sides amongst the
Reformers; consequently, we had no one to give us any intro-
duction, nay, not even to give us a word of counsel.

At that time the most influential man among the Noncon-
formists in London was a Dr. Campbell. He was the editor of
a religious newspaper which was regarded as the principal
organ of the Denomination, known as TJie British Banner, to-
gether with one or two other magazines. Dr. Campbell was
mighty in controversy, and his paper had achieved no little
notoriety in this line.

XI] THE BEGINNINGS OF A LOVE STORY 133

Beyond this, we knew nothing about him.

I pushed W. up to go and see him, and after some of that
hesitancy which we feel for a task when our heart is not in it,
he screwed up his courage and called at the Dr.'s residence,
and asked to see the great man. The Dr. received him most
kindly, made him tell the story of his life, and then told him
that he liked him, and would help him to the utmost of his
ability. He gave him some letters of introduction, and finally
brought him before the Committee for Home Mission Work,
when, after various inquiries, theological, doctrinal, and other-
wise, it was decided that he should be accepted and sent to the
Training College which was located somewhere out of London.

In addition to W.'s difficulty in regard to ^^lethodist Govern-
ment, there rose up a still more formidable one, that of
doctrine.

We knew that the basis of the Congregational theology was
Calvinism. We were both saturated, as it were, with the
broadest, deepest, and highest opinions as to the extent of the
love of God and the benefit flowing from the sacrifice of Jesus
Christ. We were verily extremists on this question. The
idea of anything like the selection of one individual to enjoy
the blessedness of the Divine favour for ever and ever, and the
reprobation of another to suffer all the pains and penalties of
everlasting damnation, irrespective of any choice, conduct, or
character on their part, seemed to us to be an outrage on all
that was fair and righteous, to say nothing about benevolent.
We not only thought this, but felt it. On this, at least, we
were in perfect harmony.

Now the knowledge that this doctrine was maintained by
the Congregationalists in general, although we knew that it
was not very generally preached, it being only here and there
that we ever heard it mentioned in the popular addresses of the
Congregational preachers of that day — that fading away from
the public view of that doctrine, which is almost complete in
our time, had already commenced — still, this phantom haunted
W. continually, and one of the first questions he asked Dr.
Campbell in the interview of which I have already spoken was
whether he would be expected to preach any other doctrine
than the universal love of God. The Dr. assured him that he
would not be expected to preach any other doctrine than that
which he honestly believed, saying to him most emphatically,
** Now you must go to College and study over your Bible, and
what you find there you must go out and preach, and that will
be all that Independents will require from you."

This assurance was repeated to him again in the intercourse
into which he was brought with other leading Ministers of this
Church.

Judge of his surprise, after having passed his examination,

134 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

and all had been fixed up for his admission into the Institution,
on being informed by Dr. George Smith as the mouthpiece of
the Committee that he would be expected to conform his views
on this question to the Calvinistic theory. The Dr. said, " The
Committee has shown you great favour arranging for you to
go into training, although not even a member of an Independ-
ent Church, and holding doctrinal views opposed to those of the
Committee ; but on examination at the close of the first term,
the Committee will certainly expect that you will be more
nearly in harmony with their opinions," at the same time
recommending an immediate perusal of Booth's Reign of Grace
and Payne's Divine Sovereignty.

This was a tremendous drop for W. With great searchings
of heart and innumerable misgivings he had managed to get so
far. His views on church government had not been based upon
any particular estimate of its importance, apart from the great
purpose which it was intended to serve. Even then he was not
one of those who magnify the form at the expense of the sub-
stance, but was prepared to sacrifice any favoured notions he
might have entertained on this subject if he could thereby have
secured the one important end on which his heart was set. . . .
But when it came to a change of doctrine on what was to him
such a vital question, he was completely staggered. To have
left him perfectly free was the only reasonable and honourable
course for the Committee to have adopted ; in fact, the only
course that was needed on behalf of the churches they repre-
sented. Of what value could a man possibly be if, for the sake
of position, he could deliberately change his views on such a
vital topic as the one in question?

Moreover, a more unlikely course to have attained their ends
could not possibly have been taken, especially with W. If he
had been left perfectly free to decide and act accordingly, as
Dr. Campbell had assured him he would be, the review of the
controversy by him would have been, I have no doubt, fairly
and faithfully made ; . . . not that I expect it would have
resulted in any change of opinion, still the subject would have
been considered in all its bearings. But as it was, it was like
offering a bribe, the very thought of which prevented even the
most superficial consideration of the subject in question, and
consequently most effectually served to defeat its own purpose.

However, W. shook hands with the Dr., bought Booth's
Reign of Grace on his way home, sat down to read it, managed
to get through some 30 or 40 pages, threw it to the other side
of the room, decided that he could never bring his mind to the
views therein laid down, and so closed the door to the Training
Institution, and to the Independents. He then decided to write
the Secretary, thanking him for all his kindness, but intimating
that he had not the slightest intention of altering his doctrinal

XI] THE BEGINNINGS OF A LOVE STORY 135

views, or of even deliberately setting to work to prepare for
doing so.

All this, any one can easily imagine, was of considerable
interest to me. From the moment of our engagement we had
become one, and from that hour to this I don't think there has
ever been any question of importance concerning either our
principles or our practice in which we have not acted in perfect
harmony.

I had been made familiar with every varying phase of the
question as the negotiations proceeded. The matter had been
undertaken more or less as I have said at my own instigation,
and I had laboured hard to strengthen W.'s hands and to pilot
him through the many difficulties that barred the way, and now,
all at once, my schemes were frustrated, and my hopes, in that
direction at least, were at an end, and we were once again
afloat.

Amongst other things, ways and means demanded that W.
should do something. The little store of money with which he
left business was now exhausted. The last sixpence he had in
the world he had given to a poor girl dying of consumption the
day before in the expectation of going to the Training College
on the following morning.

Therefore it seemed desirable that some other door should
open in lieu of the one that had so abruptly closed.

As far as we could see no other deliverance was in sight,
and yet, dark as the outlook was, the thought of going back to
some business engagement was not allowed or entertained by
either one of us. " No retreat " was our motto. We must go
forward.

But how ? That wa*s the question. We had not long to wait.

I have already described that as the Episcopal Church
divides the country into parishes, so Wesleyan Methodism
groups those places where it operates into circuits.

The Reform movement, so far as it was able to, followed
this line of demarcation. In some circuits the disruption was
comparatively small, and the dissatisfied party found it the
greatest difficulty to maintain an existence.

In others, the Reforming party formed a considerable portion
of the body. This was the case at Spalding, a small town in the
south of Lincolnshire. Here the great majority of lay
preachers and people sided with the expelled Ministers, and
were, in course of time, by expulsion or from choice, separated
from the original fold, whereupon they formed themselves into
a Community consisting of Societies and lay Preachers.

These Societies were separated by considerable distances
from each other, the circuit being something like 27 miles
across. To travel about amongst these Societies, preaching to
them on the week nights and to transact the various matters of

136 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.xi]

business which were essential to their existence and extension,
and to perform the other manifold duties of a Pastor, a preacher
was required. Enquiry for such an one was made by a friend
in London ; W. was at once suggested by the gentleman to whom
the enquiry was made. As the result the invitation was for-
warded and accepted, and before many days had passed he was
duly installed in a position in which, notwithstanding some
considerable drawbacks, his whole soul was in harmony.

To us this seemed a wonderful intervention indeed, but not
more so than numberless similar instances that followed in the
succeeding years. Again and again have there been Red Seas
and Jordans through which we have gone in safety.

It was on . . . day of this year 1852 that W. left me for
Spalding.

This parting, although a very simple matter, perhaps appear-
ing scarcely worthy of notice, was nevertheless a very serious
event to me.

I don't know that I need hesitate to say that I loved W.
with all my heart. We had been thrown very much together,
and though the acquaintance had only extended some 6 months,
it had been a very intimate one.

Parting, to me, had always looked a very formidable sort of
thing. When a little girl, I made up my mind that I could not
live as the wife of a seafaring or military man, simply on the
ground of separation. As a Salvationist, I have since learnt
many things and amongst others to endure separations from
those I love for the Kingdom's sake, and on this occasion I
braced myself up. Although it meant suffering, yet I did not
wish it otherwise. The sacrifice of a present good to secure a
greater in the future had always appeared to me to be one of
the higher forms of duty; I cheerfully embraced it on this
occasion.

CHAPTER XII

PURITAN LOVE-LETTERS
1852

Unfortunately, the love-letters of William Booth and
Catherine Mumford are difficult to arrange in time sequence,
since the dates are in many cases altogether omitted or
mentioned only as the day and the month on which they were
written ; moreover, these documents suffered in the con-
fusion which befell other papers, owing to the migratory life
of the writers, and a consecutive dialogue is not to be made
of those that are available. Nevertheless, these letters
which follow% like beads on a string, are all connected on the
single thread of the lovers' supreme difficulty. They can
be read without any bother as to dates, and one is so inter-
ested in the narrative, so amused by the quaint style of the
two writers, so charmed, and in some instances so exalted,
by the beauty of the romance, that one steps over each
hiatus scarcely conscious that a break has occurred.

The letters are so spontaneous, so unconscious of pub-
lication, so intimate and yet so public, that they may be
given in their fulness and with scarcely the interposition of
a single comment. The reader will remember that Catherine
Mumford's education was superior to William Booth's, and
will, perhaps, perceive a somewhat exaggerated evidence of
this superiority in the letters ; he may also detect a stronger
and a more able personality in her love-letters, a greater
vigour of mind, a much keener perception, and certainly a
profounder spirituality. It is important, however, to bear
in mind that from the very first Catherine Mumford recog-
nized in William Booth a man of destiny, a man of extraor-
dinary power, and of almost matchless enthusiasm. She
looked up to him as to a superior force; she realized that
he was one whose character would grow with life, whose
power would increase with exercise; if she is superior to
him in her letters, if she advises him, reproves him, instructs

137

138 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

him, and even drives him, still it is always as one who merely
sees further into futurity, and knows as a mother knows the
strength into which her child will grow. Catherine Mum-
ford lived to be called '' the Mother of the Salvation
Army"; she was also the mother of the man who married
her.

Bergsonism has here a most admirable example of its
thesis that the intellect is merely a weapon forged by life
for its use, that life itself is superior to mental accomplish-
ment. One must also consider that while Catherine Alum-
ford had leisure on her hands, and rather laid herself out at
this time as a letter-writer, William Booth, even in 1852,
was a man incessantly and exhaustively engaged in work
which seemed to him infinitely more urgent than the writing
of love-letters. His love-story is only a part of his life-
story, and his life-story is as much a psychological study
of development along one single line of human activity
as an epic of religious enthusiasm.

Here follow letters which cover the greater part of 1852,
prior to William Booth's departure for Spalding, and which
are chiefly concerned with the struggle of these two souls to
know the will of God in their desperate situation:

William Booth to Catherine Mumford.

My dear Friend — I promised you a line. I write. I know
no more than I knew yesterday. I offered as you know full
well then and there to make the engagement. You declined on
what without doubt are good grounds, but still I cannot do
more. . . . You know the inmost feelings of my heart, and I
can say no more than I have not, as I could have wished, seen
anything striking to intimate the will of God. If my circum-
stances had not been so benighted I might not have desired
this, but I feel the importance of the affair, if I feel nothing
else.

Now understand me. As I said yesterday, I offer now a
step in the dark. I will proniise you anything you wish for
your ozi'n dear sake, but mind, my feelings are still the same.
But the tie shall be as sacred as though made under the influ-
ence of sunnier feelings and in prospect of brighter days. You
can write me your mind. I do not wish to trouble you for a
long letter. Put down in a line what you think. If you de-
cline as yesterday, I ask the favour of being allowed to keep
as secret as my Bible and as full to me of inspiration, and as

xn] PURITAN LOVE-LETTERS 139

sacred as my soul's inmost feelings, the notes I already have in
your writing. As you wish you can keep or burn mine. I
could almost trust you with the keeping of the Title Deeds
of my soul's salvation, so highly do I esteem your character.
Perhaps I write wildly. Excuse me. I began calm.

After this is ended, this awful controversy,^ I shall call on
you again. If you accept what I have stated, I will come
Saturday. // not, I shall call as a friend in the course of a
few days and show you how I bear the matter. If it be of
man, if it be wrong, it will pass forgotten away. If it be of
God He will still bring it to pass.

All I fear is your suffering and your mother's condemnation.
But I cannot help it. Believe every word I have here said. If
you accept, we are henceforth and for ever one. If you decline,
the matter must be forgotten. I leave you in the hands of my
God.— I am, Yours, etc., William Booth.

Miss C. Mumford.

William Booth to Catherine Mumford.

Walworth.
(Undated.)

My dear Friend — You may perhaps deem me to be taking
another step in the wrong direction, but I must, after the very
abrupt manner in which we parted last evening, say a word.
I believe that you think me sincere, and I have only one fear,
that is, that you will make yourself ill. If you do, and I hear
of it, it will drive me into delirium. My mind is made up.
My hopes are set on things below of the same nature as things
above. My heart prays that His will may be done on earth
as it is done in Heaven. . . .

How clear and distinct in answer to prayer did God make
the path of Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher. With them it was not
the impulse of passion, but the clear unmistakable teaching of
Providence. I would that it should be so in our experience.
Be assured that your reasoning on the subject is not forgotten.
I remember your every word. But hear me again and I will
be silent.

1. Such a matter never could be arranged without in some
way transpiring, which would, I conceive, injure my usefulness.

2. It never could be without inducing me to occupy time,
every moment of which ought to be taken up with study.

3. I have no present probability of making my circumstances
such that I can ask you to share my home.

4. I should feel such a powerful earthly bond taking up my

iThis is the "controversy" referred to in the previous chapter, as to
w^hether the lovers should make a regular engagement or turn their
affection into a Platonic friendship.

I40 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

feelings and drawing off my heart from entire and complete
devotion to God.

5. God has of late been satisfying me with Himself, and I
should fear setting up or creating another god, especially seeing
that He has placed me in a position that my heart has so long
desired and given me every comfort I wish.

6. Moreover, when I ponder over the salvation He has been
working out for me, saving me from peculiar temptations to
which I have been prone — and the darkness that hangs around
me, etc., I feel an involuntary shudder creep over me at the
thought of an engagement. . . .

I need not say the high place your character and disposition
have in my esteem. I need not say how I regret, for your sake,
that I ever set foot in your home. I need not say that the high
estimation your mother has for you led her, I conceive, to take
a prejudicial view of my conduct and to make remarks which
were unmerited and unjust, and calculated to wrong my soul.

But it is over now. I am resigned to the will of God. I
shall endeavour to pursue the path of duty. . . .

In the meantime, let us give ourselves to God, fix our affec-
tions all on Christ, and seek to do His will. Your kindness to
me I need not refer to. I have indeed been grateful for it, and
felt indeed how undeser^-ed it was.

May God bless and prosper you temporally and spiritually,
and may He make His will known and evident so that you may
see it and understand it. Whatever you do, try to save men,
to bless the world, and to preach Christ. . . . With many
prayers, — I remain, your sincere and affectionate friend,

W'lLLiAM Booth.
Miss Mumford.

William Booth to Catherine Mumford.

Walford.
My dear Friend — Yours has just come to hand. My
mother's note preceded it, imploring me to do nothing rashly,
fearing my accustomed impetuosity, my feeling gaining the
mastery over the calm, teaching of reason; as a matter of
course, she is aware that she cannot further than this advise
me, not knowing you personally ; she assures me that she has
laid the matter before God as requested, and that the only im-
pression on her mind in answer to such a prayer is, that ere
such an important step be taken I should consider long, re-
minding me in conclusion that once a long time back she spoke
Zi'isely to me on the same subject,^ but at the same time declar-
ing that she will acquiesce in any decision at which I may

1 This must refer, one thinks, to the love affair in Nottingham.

XII] PURITAN LOVE-LETTERS 141

arrive ; this is all I could possibly expect, all I desire at her
hands. . . .

I need not recapitulate my doubts, only that every day seems
to blacken them and make them more worthy of consideration ;
I need not say here how highly I judge of you and how high in
my estimation your virtuous soul I rank ; I need not say that
I have deemed and still do deem every, even the minutest, of
your actions and words spotless and without blemish, that is,
in my eyes ; I need not tell you that I mean Christ and a union
in Heaven, and that my resolutions are unbroken to live and
live only for the salvation of souls and the glory of God ; I need
not urge you to a more earnest searching out for the beauties
and loveliness of the character of Jesus ; I need not exhort you
to entire consecration to His service and His constant hallowed
communion ; I would to God that my intercourse with Him was
as perfect and my resemblance to His image was as divine as
your own. I will to-day more earnestly than ever pray that
you may find your all in all in Him. I say nothing decisive
because I know nothing; I have neither advanced nor retro-
graded from the position I occupied when last we met.

I intend, all well, visiting near Binfield this afternoon. Mr.
Nye preaches there, I understand, to-night. I shall not be
there, or else I might, I suppose, have had the pleasure of shak-
ing hands with you. But we have a committee at Walworth.
I trust you will have a good night's rest ; I am grieved to hear
that you are poorly. My health is good, tolerably so. I bore
the fatigue of Sunday quite as well as I could have expected.

With my love to your dear mother — that is, if you com-
municate this letter ; I do not see why you should not. — I re-
main, affectionately yours in the Love of the risen, interceding,
atoning, sacrificial, ever-prevailing Lamb of God,

William Booth.
Miss Catherine Mumford.

Catherine Mumford to William Booth.

Brixton,
Tuesday night, May 11, '52.
My dear Friend — I have been spreading your letter before
the Lord and earnestly pleading for a manifestation of His
will to your mind in some way or other, and now I would say a
few words of comfort and encouragement. My heart feels for
you far beyond what I can express. Oh that I knew how to
comfort you in an indirect way.

• •'•••••

You do grieve me by saying, " you fear you have blocked up
every way of being a blessing to me." / tell you it is not so;

142 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

your kindness and character will ever give weight to your ad-
vice and teaching, and create a sympathy with your prayers
which cannot fail to benefit me. If you wish to avoid giving me
pain don't condemn yourself. I feel sure God does not condemn
you, and if you could look into my heart you would see how
far I am from such a feeling. Dont pore over the past. Let
it all go. Your desire is to do the will of God, and He will
guide you. Never mind zi'ho frowns, if God smiles. Though
you are surrounded by a host of foes He is able to deliver and
He zi'il! deliver, only trust in Him and don't be afraid ; the
darkness and gloom that hangs about your path shall all flee
away. When you are tried you shall come forth as gold ! The
words gloom, melancholy, and despair lacerate my heart.
Don't give way to such feelings for a moment. God loves you.
He will sustain you. The thought that I should increase your
perplexity and cause you any suffering is almost intolerable.
Oh that we had never seen each other. Do try to forget me, so
far as the remembrance would injure your usefulness or spoil
your peace. If I have no alternative but to oppose the will of
God or trample on the desolations of my own heart, my choice
is made. ** Thy will be done " is my constant cry. I care not
for myself, but oh if I cause you to err I shall never be happy
again. Don't, I beseech you, take any step without some evi-
dence satisfactory to your own mind of the will of God ; think
nothing about me ; I will resist to the uttermost. *' I can do all
things through Christ strengthening me." I do continually
pray for you : surely God must answer our prayers when He
sees it is our one desire to do His will. Let us expect an an-
swer ; perhaps our faith is deficient. ... — Yours affectionately,

Catherine.

Catherine Miimford to William Booth.

Brixtox,
May 13. '52.
My dear Friend — I have read and re-read your note, and I
fear you did not fully understand my difficulty. It was not cir-
cumstances ; I thought I had fully satisfied you on that point.
I thought you felt sure that a bright prospect could not allure
me nor a dark one aft'right me, if we are only one in heart. My
difficulty, my only reason for wishing to defer the engagement
was, that you might feel satisfied in your own mind that the
step is right. To cause you to err would cost me far more
suffering than anything else. I have deeply pondered over all
your words at our last interview, especially the objections
which you so honourably confessed had influenced your mind,
and I dare not enter into so solemn an engagement till you can
assure me that you feel I am in every way suited to make you

XII] PURITAN LOVE-LETTERS 143

happy and that you are satisfied the step is not opposed to the
will of God.

You say if your circumstances were not so blighted you
could not desire so striking an indication of God's will. I
answer if you are satisfied of His will irrespective of circum-
stances, let circumstances go, and let us be one, come what will ;
but if there is anything in me which you fear, anything you
-think would mar your completest happiness, banish the thought
of an union for ever, and let us regard each other as true and
tried friends ; but if you feel satisfied on these two points —
first, that the step is not opposed to the will of God, and, sec-
ondly, that I am calculated to make you happy, come on Sat-
urday evening, and on our knees before God let us give our-
selves afresh to Him and to each other for His sake, consecrate
our whole selves to His service for Him to live and die. \\'hen
this is done what have we to do with the future ? — we and all
our concerns are in His hands, under His all-wise and gracious
providence.

I wish you could see into my heart for a moment ; I cannot
transfer to paper my absorbing desire that the ivill of God may
be done in this matter. I dare no more say I decline, or I
accept (except on the beforementioned grounds) than I dare
take my destiny into my own hands, the cry of my inmost soul
is, Thy will be done. H you come on Saturday I shall presume
that you are satisfied on these two points, and that henceforth
we are one ; in the meantime I shall not cease to pray that God
may guide you aright. ]\Iay He bless you, and if He sees that
I am not such an one as you need to be an helpmate for you,
may He enable you to forget me. . . .

William Booth to Catherine Mumford.

Walworth, June 24.
(Probably 1852.)

My own dear Catherine — . . . I feel uncommonly tired
and weary this morning. My head aches, and I feel altogether
out of order. I walked home from Greenwich last night. I
ought to have ridden. 1 preached there with much liberty and
trust some profit to the people, though the congregation was
not so good as the week before, some of the leading friends
having gone to some fete in the neighbourhood. . . .

Let us love Him better for the love we bear each other, and
seek in all things perfect and unimpaired conformity to all His
will and work. I hope when you can that you will resume your
reading, and I trust in better spirits and with a firmer trust in
the Hand that feeds the ravens. . . ,

144 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.xh]

William Booth to Catherine Miimford.

Monday morning.

My own loving Kate — It has just occurred to my mind
that I did not leave you a correct address of that poor girl, and
lest you should be prevented from your benevolent undertaking
I post this to inform you. If you leave the omnibus at the
Obelisk, at the end of the London and at the foot of the Water-
loo and Blackfriars' Roads, you will be but a few yards from
your destination, which is No. 3 or 4 Duke Street, next door to
a Plumber and Glazier's shop : it is up two flights of stairs ;
take with you a smelling-bottle ; a widow woman, who lives in
the room as you enter from the street, if you ask her for the
poor girl of the name of " Leach," will show you her room, I
doubt not. Speak pointedly to all you see of the family ; men-
tion my name. . . .

My love to you, all my heart. I may or may not see you this
evening. I write this on purpose that you may have the direc-
tion to that poor dying girl. Pray for me, oh to be willing to
take any path which may promise most the diffusion of right-
eousness and the glory of God. Oh let us give ourselves afresh
and entirely to Him; never was such a sacrifice as this needed
as now ; I would make my choice under the influence of deep
piety and devotion, and I shall not err.

My love to your dear mother. I love not only you, but her
better than ever before.

I pray for your entire consecration, and believe me, — Yours
in the closest alliance of united soul, spirit, and body, for time
and for eternity, for earth and for Heaven, for sorrow and for
joy, for ever and for ever. Amen. William.

CHAPTER XIII

WILLIAM BOOTH AS A SUCCESSFUL EVANGELIST.
CATHERINE MUM FORD AS GUARDIAN ANGEL

1852-1853

It was not until he got into Lincolnshire that William Booth
felt sure of his vocation. The experiment in London had
been a failure, as we have seen, and one that rather tended
to diminish the young man's confidence in his calling. He
has left a fragment behind him which expresses his disgust
for the satisfied and sanctimonious people among whom, he
had attempted to labour, and alludes briefly to the now
pressing crisis in his financial affairs :

But the people would have nothing to do with me. They
" did not want a parson." They reckoned they were all par-
sons, so that at the end of the three months' engagement the
weekly income came to an end ; and indeed I would not have
renewed the engagement on any terms. There was nothing for
me to do but to sell my furniture and live on the proceeds,
which did not supply me for a very long time. I declare to
you that at that time I was so fixed as not to know which way
to turn.

In my emergency a remarkable way opened for me to enter
college and become a Congregational minister. But after long
waiting, several examinations, trial sermons, and the like, I was
informed that on the completion of my training I should be
expected to believe and preach what is known as Calvinism,
x^fter reading a book which fully explained the doctrine, I
threw it at the wall opposite me, and said I would sooner starve
than preach such doctrine, one special feature of which was that
only a select few could be saved.

I\Iy little stock of money was exhausted. I remember that
I gave the last sixpence I had in the world to a poor woman
whose daughter lay dying; but within a week I received a
letter inviting me to the charge of a Methodist Circuit in Lin-
colnshire, and from that time my difficulties of that kind be-
came much less serious.

He was encouraged, as we know, by the enthusiasm of
Catherine ^lumford during this distressing period, but it

14s

146 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

must have been hard indeed for a young man with his foot
on the threshold of a career to find the door of destiny thus
shut in his face.

His reception in Spalding was the very reverse of his
experience in London. He gives in his unpublished reminis-
cences a hurried account of this first great experience as a
Methodist preacher, which we will quote in this place ; but
it is really in the letters of Catherine Mumford, which shall
follow, that one gets a close, striking, and intimate knowl-
edge of his mind at that period :

The Spalding people welcomed me as though I had been an
angel from Heaven, providing me with every earthly blessing
within their ability, and proposing that I should stay with them
for ever ! They wanted me to marry right away, offered to
furnish me a house, provide me with a horse to enable me more
readily to get about the country, and proposed other things that
they thought would please me.

With them I spent the happiest eighteen months of my life.
Of course my horizon was much more limited in those days
than it is now, and consequently required less to fill it.

Although I was only twenty-three years of age and Lincoln-
shire was one of the counties that had been most privileged with
able Methodist preaching for half a century, and I had to
immediately follow in Spalding a somewhat renowned minister,
God helped me very wonderfully to make myself at home, and
become a power amongst the people.

I felt some nervousness when on my first November Sunday
I was confronted by such a large congregation as greeted me.
In the morning I had very little liberty ; but good was done,
as I afterwards learned. In the afternoon we had a Prayer- or
After-meeting, at which one young woman wept bitterly. I
urged her to come to the communion-rails at night. She did
so, and the Lord saved her. She afterwards sent me a letter
thanking me for urging her to come. In the evening I had
great liberty in preaching, and fourteen men and women came
to the communion-rail ; many, if not all, finding the Saviour.

On the Monday I preached there again. Four came for-
v/ard, three of whom professed to find Salvation. I exerted
myself very much, felt very deeply, and prayed very earnestly
over an old man who had been a backslider for seven years.
He wept bitterly, and prayed to the Lord to save him, " if He
could wash a heart as black as Hell." By exerting myself so
much I made myself ill, and was confined to the house during
the rest of the week. ]\Iy host and hostess were very kind to
me.

xin] HIS GUARDIAN ANGEL 147

The next Sunday I started from home rather unwell. I had
to go to Donnington, some miles away, in the morning and
evening, and to Swineshead Bridge in the afternoon.

But at night God helped me to preach in such a way that
many came out, and fourteen names were taken of those who
really seemed satisfactory. It was indeed a melting, moving
time.

I was kneeling, talking to a penitent, when some one touched
me on the shoulder and said, " Here is a lady who has come to
seek the Saviour, and now she has come to hear you, and she
wants Salvation too." The Lord had mercy upon her, and she
went away rejoicing.

At Swineshead Bridge — the name gives some idea of the
utterly rural character of the population — I was to preach on
three successive evenings, in the hope of promoting a Revival
there. Many things seemed to be against the project, but the
Lord was for us. Two people came out on the Monday eve-
ning, and God saved them both. This raised our faith and
cheered our spirits, especially as we knew that several more
souls were in distress.

On the Tuesday the congregation was better. The news had
spread that the Lord was saving, and that seldom fails to bring
a crowd wiierever it may be. That evening the word was w4th
power, and six souls cried for mercy. At the earnest solicita-
tion of the people I decided to stay the remainder of the week,
and urged them to pray earnestly, with the result that many
sought and found Salvation, and the little Society was nearly
doubled.

On the Saturday, just as I started home on the omnibus, a
plain, unsophisticated Christian man came and said, *' O sir,
let me have hold of your hand." When he had seized it be-
tween both his, with tears streaming down his face, he said,
" Glory be to God that ever you came here. My wife before
her conversion was a cruel persecutor, and a sharp thorn in my
side. She would go home from the Prayer-Meeting before me,
and as full of the Devil as possible; she would oppose and re-
vile me; but now, sir, she is just the contrary, and my house,
instead of being a little Hell has become a little Paradise."
This was only one of a number of cases in which husbands re-
joiced over wives, and wives over husbands, for whom they
had long prayed.

I shall always remember with pleasure the week I spent at
Swineshead Bridge, because I prayed more and preached with
more of the spirit of expectation and faith, and then saw more
success than in any previous week of my life. I dwell upon it
as, perhaps, the week which most effectually settled my con-
viction for ever, that it was God's purpose by my using the
simplest means to bring souls into liberty, and to break into

148 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

the cold and formal state of things to which so many of His
people only too readily settle down.

The letters which now follow are of considerable impor-
tance in the study of William Booth's development. They
reveal his excitement in his work, his pleasure in his own
power, the self-satisfaction of a young enthusiast conscious
of growing popularity; and they also reveal his determina-
tion to adopt revival methods, his misgiving as to Catherine
Mumford's feelings in this matter, his ow^n tolerance of
those who follow^ other w^ays. One may say at this juncture
that while William Booth never lost faith in the rousing
methods of revivalism, he never once claimed for such
methods a universal adoption by the Church. He recog-
nized from the first, and held to the last, that there are two
distinct fields of religious activity — the field of aggressive
evangelism and the pastoral field.

It will be seen from these letters that Catherine ]\Ium-
ford's influence was exerted at the very beginning of their
engagement on the side of a deeper and truer spirituality
that William Booth had then visualised; one of her letters,
indeed, deserves to live, and probably will live, as one of
the beautiful documents in the literature of mysticism; at
the same time one must keep in mind that William Booth
eventually carried the day with her, and won her over com-
pletely to the side of a demonstrative and aggressive prop-
aganda, which she purified and exalted as the years went on.

William Booth to Catherine Miimford.

Red Lion Street, Spalding,
Thursday, Nov. 17.
My dearest earthly Treasure — Bless you a thousand
times for your very kind letter just received; it has done my
heart good. I have thought about you much and very affec-
tionately the last few days. ... I should have written you yes-
terday, but was so unwell that I could not. ... I do not doubt our
future oneness with regard to revivalism and about all things.
I have such faith in our powers of utterance that we shall be
able to make plain to each other what we mean, and our love to
each other, that when we can be brought to see truth held by the
other we shall rejoice to adopt it. And although now I do not
doubt I could bear with extravagancies in a preacher or a
prayer-meeting which you would condemn ... I do not blame

XIII] HIS GUARDIAN ANGEL 149

you, so wait until the time comes, and we shall yet, I do not
doubt, see with the same eyes. . . . The great difference be-
tween a man known as a faithful preacher nowadays and one
of the John Smith, Wm, Bramwell, James Caughey, David
Stoner, Ralph Walter, and Richard Poole school is, I think, in
this — the one deals out the plain truth as do Mr. Thomas, Mr.
Gamble, Mr. Brown, Luke Tyerman, and others in nice suit-
able language with considerable thought, prayer, and earnest-
ness— and faithfulness too — but there it ends so far as you
can see; but the other school preach similar pointed truth, urg-
ing more especially salvation by faith, just now, and then direct
calling on sinners to lay down the weapons of rebellion, and
give up their hearts to God fiozv, following all up with a prayer-
meeting and penitent-forms, benches, or pews. ... I do not
condemn any — I leave every man to follow out the bent of
his own inclination and to act up to the teaching of God's
Spirit — but I know which God owns the most. I believe that
with Mr. Thomas's talent, if he would follow such measures
he might soon have his chapel crowded and hundreds converted
to God. I do not speak censoriously. I have not the tact and
the talent that thousands have, and yet under their ministry
how little do we see done ; what I have of head or heart or lip
shall be consecrated and sacred to this service. . . .

The great plan of Salvation is, ceasing from making efforts
to make unto yourself a righteous character, and sinking help-
less into the arms of Christ and accepting Full Salvation, a
pure heart, and all the blessings of the New Covenant by faith.
I see that I have erred here. I have promised and promised,
and bowed and bowed, and always failed ; whereas now I go to
Him and say, I am nothing, Thou art my all in all. Try this.
Will you, darling ? — Don't begin at the outside and aim at
patching up this rent and that rent in your life, but go to Jesus
and take the blessings of a pure heart at His hand, and say,

'Tis done, Thou dost this moment save,

With full salvation bless,
Redemption through Thy Blood I have

And spotless love and peace.

Read one or two of John Wesley's sermons now and then.
You shall have some more books when we meet again all well.
May the Lord bless you. Read over again the Life of Mrs.
Fletcher. Farewell. I want to see you very much. I have
thought about you very tenderly since I have been ill. Oh how
I wanted your hand on my aching head. . . .

I had to have brandy twace, was really ill, thought much of
you. Got better and went and preached, and came home and
made a hearty dinner of goose, etc., etc. Mr. Molesworth lives
in a very nice house, built by himself, wooden, and beautifully

150 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

furnished. He is a large farmer and a man of some property,
has a large family remarkably well behaved, and for whom he
keeps a Governess in the house. From his house I walked on to
Holbeach, where I found that I was announced to preach, and
notwithstanding my weakness I had to do so ; the congregation
was large and respectable. I had great liberty in preaching
from Christ having overcome the world. In the morning I had
again to take brandy twice, and then I preached with some
pleasure from Paul not being ashamed of the Gospel; after-
wards was hurled away by a gentleman, by name Mr. George
Brown, to Holbeach Marsh, some eight miles away ; he took
me in his gig. I found his home quite a nice house, a large
family of very nice and apparently well-educated children, a
resident Governess (a young lady who is leaving in a deep
decline), and everything first rate. I made an excellent din-
ner, and away we went to preach ; service held in a large
kitchen, which was quite full, about 69 or 70 present. I sup-
pose the Conference get about 6 or 7, so that there is little fear
of our getting the chapel. I had a little liberty. Here I met
^Ir. Jonathan Longhatton, reported to me as the most shrewd
and talented preacher and speaker in the Circuit. He gave me
a hearty w^elcome, and assured me how glad he should be to see
me at his house, and told me that, as a man of experience, I
must take port wine, that he could tell by my voice and appear-
ance that it would do me good. My health is of first im-
portance. \Miat do you say, dearest? After shaking hands,
away we went in the gig again, and after a cold, bleak ride I
reached Holbeach, took tea with Mr. Peet, and preached on
*' This is indeed the Christ " to a large and attentive congre-
gation with great pleasure to myself. Supper with Mr. Peet,
who is a man of property, perhaps as rich as any man in the
Circuit; afterwards returned to what is my present home, Mr.
Ryecroft, a local preacher of whom I have spoken to you be-
fore as being so beloved and popular.

So that by the time I reach Spalding on Friday, after being
absent seven days, I shall have preached, " all well," 10 instead
of 6 sermons.

But I mean on another plan to keep them to their word, at
least after this week. And now, my dearest, will you contrive
to get my things off this week? There are very few clothes
worth sending. ... I think, when I get some money, to write
to Yorkshire and get my old friend Mr. Scholes to make and
send me a piece of cloth. But if you will, get them sent off and
directed to me at

Mr. Green's,
Baker,

Red Lion Street,

Spalding, Lincolnshire,

xin] HIS GUARDIAN ANGEL 151

where your next letter must also be directed. I have left
orders that should they get there before me they are to be paid
for and taken in. . . .

Be assured of my continued affections and purest intentions,
and that if your health and my circumstances would warrant
it, our wedding, instead of January, '54, should be January, '53.

With my love to your dearest mother, father, and Mr. M. — I
remain, my darling, — yours as ever and for ever, William.

To MY DEAREST LovE — My positiou here is likely to be just
to my own mind.

The letters of Catherine Mum ford, which now follow,
show how she watched the popular young preacher from
afar, and how in the midst of her satisfaction at his opening
success she w^as profoundly troubled about his ultimate des-
tiny. These letters can be read as a single document, and
fortunately they not only give one a most intimate impres-
sion of the writer, but show very clearly the manner of man
to whom they w^ere written. Some of these letters seem
to me as beautiful love-letters as any in the world, reaching
at times heights of religious inspiration hardly to be
matched in the literature of the saints, and sounding so un-
mistakable a note of truth and purity of aim that they do
not suffer in the least from an occasional use of the now
outworn vocabulary of Methodist fervour.

London,
December 17, '52.

My beloved William — I think your depreciatory remarks
on the character of your epistles were much out of place at
the commencement of the very kind and beautiful letter I re-
ceived this morning. If any one who did not know me had seen
me walk about the parlour dissolved in tears, after its perusal,
they would have thought I had received some very distressing
intelligence, but they were tears of gladness and gratitude for
the goodness of God. Oh how my soul praises Him for the
favourable aspect of your affairs !

I think the issue of the committee-meeting most satisfactory.
I did not expect more than £65, and your position being de-
fined so exactly according to your own views, and their not
desiring so many sermons as you supposed, is over and above
anything I had ever hoped; let us praise the Lord and be
encouraged.

Of the kindness of the people, I cannot speak ; I can only
feel its value and pray for an hundredfold return of it to their

152 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

own bosoms. I think the status you have taken amongst them
is superior to my anticipations ; mind, my Love, that you sustain
it, as a man and gentleman of manners, and kindness will not
fail to do it. " As superiority of mind, or something not to be
defined, first rivets the attention, so manners, decent and
polite, the same we practised at first sight, must save it from
declension." As a preacher, study will not only enable you to
maintain your present status, but attain a higher. You promise
me to do zvhat you can; if you do that, I have no fear. You
desire me to do all I can for myself. I will, my Love, for
your dear sake, if I had no other motive my love for you would
be quite sufficient to stimulate me to exertion. . . .

I am sorry to hear that Mr. Hanks did not call to see you or
invite you there ; I am surprised at it ; it is very much unlike
him ; but I fear he has perhaps fallen in some way which has
injured his character, and so feels ashamed for fear you should
hear it ; but, my Love, don't on that account shun him ; try to
restore him. I feel deeply for him ; he is a good-hearted man,
and w^hen engaged in the service of God a zealous, consistent
Christian ; but he has been overtaken in a fault, and perhaps
little cared for. If you act judiciously I think you may be
made a blessing to him. I will not forget to pray that you
may. Perhaps he fears to encounter you, anticipating some
close conversation on soul matters ; I am sure it is not because
he is near or wanting in esteem for us ; at least I think so.

You ask me, my Love, to tell you whether I forgive you for
thinking, or rather for telling me your thoughts, about that one
deficiency which spoiled your earthly paradise the other night ?
Will you forgive me if I answer that it would have required a
far greater exercise of my pardoning mercy if you had asked
me to forgive you for not thinking about it ? I think you have
acted very wisely, as well as most honourably, in letting your
desires as to marrying be known ; I have been thinking, if the
Lord should indeed favour us with opportunity as soon as next
year, I should like it to take place on my birthday, January 17,
1854. You will smile, and no wonder, but you know me,
therefore I am not afraid of being misunderstood. What you
say about insuring your life I highly approve, and shall esti-
mate such act as another proof of your practical affection for
myself. . . . — Yours in tenderest and most enduring affec-
tion, C.

December 2j, '52.
My dearest William — As I did not feel in writing-tune
either yesterday or on Xmas day, I will this evening give you a
sketch of our Christmas enjoyments. Father dined at home,
and though our number was so small we enjoyed ourselves very
well. Your representation on the vvall seemed to look down

XIII] HIS GUARDIAN ANGEL 153

on our sensual gratification with awful gravity, manifesting an
indifference to the good things of this life not at all char-
acteristic of the original.

I thought about you very much during the day. I could
not but contrast my feelings with those of last year. Then my
anxieties and affections were centred in objects whose love and
care I had experienced through many changing years. Then I
knew no love but that of a child, a sister, a friend, and I
thought that love deep, sincere, fervent; perhaps it was, nay,
/ know it zvas; but since then a stranger, iinknozvn, unseen till
within the last short year, has strangely drawn around him the
finest tendrils of my heart, and awakened a new absorbing
affection which seems, as it were, to eclipse what I before
deemed the intensity of love. Then my anxieties were almost
confined to home; now this same stranger, Hke a magnet,
draws them after him in all his wanderings, so that they are
seldom at home. What a change in one short year; can you
solve the mystery? Can you find the reason?

But I am forgetting to detail the day's pleasures, etc. After
dinner we all went a walk, talked about you, my dear brother ;
the changes which have taken place in a few years ; the changes
which will probably take place in a few more, etc. My dear
father ^ seemed kinder and more comfortable than usual ; he is
still a teetotaler and is abstaining altogether from the pipe;
there is a change for the better in many respects ; don't forget
him, my Love, at the Throne of Grace. Help me and my dear
mother to pray for him. Oh, surely the Lord will save him,
surely He will not visit our unfaithfulness upon us in this way.
My soul's cry is, " Lord, if thou must chastise, any way but
this," it would be hitter anguish to mourn as they who have no
hope, and yet how little I have thought about it lately. Oh for
a Christ-like sympathy for souls such as I used to feel, when I
have sat up half the night to pray for them. My dearest Love,
this is the secret of success, the weapon before which the very
strongholds of hell must give way. Oh let us try to get it again,
let us make up our minds to win souls whatever else we leave
undone.

But to return again. We spent a very pleasant evening to-
gether. I lay on the sofa working a little watch-pocket for the
use of that stranger I have been speaking of, which I hope he
will use for my sake even though he may be provided with one
already. I hope he will [? not think I] murdered time; it did
not take me long. My dear mother and myself enjoyed a good
season in prayer and then retired to rest. . . .

Wednesday night. — My dearest Love, I received your very

1 Mr. Mumford, who was a carriage-builder, had lately lost his
enthusiasm for religious work, and was inclined to abandon Alethodism
altogether.

154 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

kind and welcome letter yesterday morning, and should have
written immediately only that I knew you would not be at
Spalding before Friday. I have felt very anxious about your
health since hearing you were so poorly. I could not sleep last
night for thinking about you. I do hope you are better. I
fear, my Love, you are not sufficiently careful as to diet ; do
exercise self-denial when such things are before you as you
have any reason to fear will disagree with you. The enclosed
prescription I got Mr. Davis to copy for you ; it is an excellent
one, given me by Mr. Franks. ... If you are not quite re-
covered I hope you will get it. I have lost faith in brandy;
where persons are not accustomed to it, it may act beneficially
for the time, but it produces a reaction by irritation of the
membrane of the stomach, whereas the mixture never fails in
my case, and I have been much troubled.

You ask my opinion about your taking port wine. I need
not say how willing, nay, anxious I am that you should have
anything and everything which would tend to promote your
health and happiness, but so thoroughly am I convinced that
port wine would do neither, that I should hear of your taking
it with unfeigned grief. You mmst not listen, my dear, to the
advice of every one claiming to be experienced ; persons really
experienced and judicious in many things not infrequently en-
tertain notions the most fallacious on this subject. I have had
it recommended to me scores of times by such individuals, but
such recommendations have always gone for nothing, because
I have felt that, however much my superiors such persons
might be in other respects, on that subject I was the best in-
formed. I have even argued the point with Mr. Stevens, and
I am sure set him completely fast for arguments to defend
alcohol even as a medicine. I am fully and for ever settled on
the physical side of the question ; I believe you are on the
moral and religious, but I have never thought you were on the
physical.

Now, my dearest, it is absolutely necessary, in order to save
you from being influenced by other people's false notions, that
you should have a settled, intelligent conviction on the subject,
and in order that you may get this I have been at the trouble
almost to unpack your box, which was beautifully packed, to
get out Bachits, in which you will find several green marks and
likewise some pencillings in three or four sections, which I hope
you will read. To read all the book would take too much time,
or else it would do you good, but the chapters I have marked
will give you a pretty concise view of that part of the subject
you most need. I do hope you will read it if you sit up an hour
later every night till you have done so — that is, when you re-
tire at ten — and I would not advise this for anything less im-
portant. I believe the perusal will fully satisfy you; but if it

xin] HIS GUARDIAN ANGEL 155

should not, send me word and I will get, if it is to be got in Lon-
don, a work by Dr. Lees, admitted to be the best work ever
written on the question.

It is a subject on which I am most anxious that you should
be thorough. I abominate that hackneyed but monstrously
inconsistent tale — a teetotaler in principle, but obliged to
take a little for my stomach's sake. Such teetotalers aid the
progress of intemperance more than all the drunkards in the
land, and there are abundance of them amongst Methodist
preachers. They seem a class of men the right performance of
whose duties seems to require pretty liberal assistance from the
bottle ; the fact is notorious, and doubtless the fault is chiefly
with the people, who foolishly consider it a kindness to put the
bottle to their neisihbour's mouth as freauentlv as he will re-
ceive it; but I believe my dear AMlliam will steadfastly resist
such foolish advisers as Mr. L., and firmly adhere to his princi-
ples till he has some better reason to abandon them. I dare
take the responsibility (and I have more reason to feel its
weight than any other being) of advising you to abandon the
idea of taking wine altogether. I have far more hope for your
health because you abstain from stimulating drinks than I
should have if you took them ; to one of your temperament
they would especially prove hurtful and destructive. Be care-
ful to abstain from all things which you knozv to injure your
health, and I have no doubt you will get strong. I have often
heard you say this would be the case if you acted judiciously.
Oh m.y Love, take every care of yourself, get everything need-
ful, but flee the detestable drink as you would a serpent ; be a
teetotaler in principle and practice ; and in this respect by ex-
ample, by precept, train up your sons, if you have any, in the
way in which they should go.

I am glad you feel the importance of the training of children,
there is no subject on which I have felt and still feel more
acutely. I have often looked on a little child and felt m.y whole
frame affected by the consideration that it were possible for
me some time to become a mother ; the awful weight of re-
sponsibility wrapped up in that beautiful word has often caused
my spirit to sink within me. Oh if I did not fully intend, and
ardently hope, to train my own (if ever blessed with any) dif-
ferently to the way in which most are trained, I would pray
every day, most earnestly, that I might never have any. Oh the
miserable homes that might be happy; the lacerated hearts
which might bound with joy; the blighted flowers which might
have bloomed on earth and expanded in heaven, but for the
wretched, foolish, wicked indifference of parents. My dear,
I hope you do not consider the arduous but glorious work of
training the intellectual and moral nature of the child solely
the dutv of the mother. Remember the father is, and must be,

156 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

in every well-regulated family, the Jiead of his household.
Think for a few moments what is implied in being their head,
their ruler, their sJicpherd, their tender parent. Oh my Love,
you have need to prepare, head and heart, for the right per-
formance of the momentous relationships you desire to realize.
As soon as you can afford it, buy Abbot's Mother at Home,
price IS., and lend it to some of the mothers you come in con-
tact with ; never mind the silent reproof conveyed by the loan,
it will do good. And, oh, if the book were made the instrument
of rescuing one poor little darling from the miserable conse-
quences of domestic misrule, it would amply repay the un-
pleasantness of any little pique taken at its presentation ; and
besides, it is as much your duty to reprove as to exhort.

Good-night, I must conclude to-morrow, when I hope to
receive another letter with good news respecting your health.

Sunday night, January 16, '53.

My dearest William — I am now closing the last day of my
23rd year. I have been reflecting on the circumstances and
experiences of my past life, on its sins, sorrows, joys, and
mercies, and my soul is deeply moved by the retrospect ; for
though my short course has been marked by no very extraor-
dinary outward events, I cannot but think that the discipline of
soul through which I have passed has been peculiar and calcu-
lated to fit me for usefulness in the cause of God. I feel truly
ashamed (now that clearer light seems to shine on the path in
which the Lord has led me) of my continual murmurings and
discontent because of the circumstances in which He has per-
mitted me to be cast ; I have spent hours in bitter grief and
•useless regret because of the disadvantages under which I have
laboured. I have often chars^ed God foolishlv and wished I
had been born with a mind content to feed on the empty husks
in which I have seen others take so much delight, rather than
be conscious of the possession of powers which must lay dor-
mant and talents uncultivated, and desires and hopes which
could never be realized. I have been ready to demand of the
Lord why He made me thus, and deprived me of the means of
that culture and improvement which He had so lavishly be-
stowed upon others who neither valued nor used them. Thus
has my foolish and wicked heart often been ready to enter
into judgment with the Almighty, not considering the superior-
ity of the gifts He has bestowed to those which I coveted.

Truly I have laboured under many disadvantages and have
often thought my lot on that account very hard, but now I see
and acknowledge the goodness of God in having made up for
them by the bestowment of that, without which all the ad-
vantages in the world would have availed me nothing, and

xiii] HIS GUARDIAN ANGEL 157

above all by the impartation of the light and influence of His
Holy Spirit which has attended me from earliest infancy, and
often excited in my childish heart thoughts, struggles, hopes,
and fears of no ordinary nature; though such struggles were hid
in the penetralia of my own spirit and unknown to any mortal.
Showers of tears, and scores of prayers were poured out by
me, when a very little girl, at the feet of Jesus, and when not
more than twelve I passed through such an ordeal of fiery
temptation for about the space of three months as but to reflect
on makes my soul recoil within me ; at that early age I fre-
quently w^atered my couch with my tears, and the billows of the
Almighty seemed to go over me. Many a time my whole
frame has trembled under the foul attacks of the adversary,
and his attacks were so subtle and of such a nature, that I
could not then, on pain of death, have revealed them to any one ;
so I endured alone and unaided by any earthly friend these
fearful conflicts of soul; the effects of which soon became
manifest in pale cheeks and failure of health and spirits, though
the true cause was unknown. But the storm passed, and my
mind regained in a great measure its former vivacity, my soul
found some repose in Christ, which alas ! soon became dis-
turbed and was ultimately lost, the fitfulness of childish feeling,
the changes and enjoyments of youth and the absence of those
helps I so much needed, induced seasons of indifference, and I
frequently grieved the Holy Spirit by relapsing into sin ; but the
wondrous goodness of my God endured with much long-
suffering my waywardness and indecision, till at length I was
roused to deep and lasting concern to become in all things
conformed to His will (for I regarded conformity to the will of
God as true religion even from childhood). Alas! how the
admission condemns me, but so it was, and I earnestly sought
till I found a sense of His favour and this conformity to His
blessed will ; and after that happy change I have often told you
how much I enjoyed His presence, and how I went on for some
time from strength to strength, being more than conqueror
over sin and Satan who continued to wage with me a distress-
ing warfare. Oh if I had followed on in the same glorious
path how different would have been my feelings to-night, but
alas! I left my first love and wandered from the side of my
Saviour; and you know the consequences. My soul is now
like the temple deserted; bereft of the abiding manifestation of
God's presence ; receiving only now and then a transitory ray,
a short and flickering illumination; but I am tired of living
thus, my soul pants, yea even fainteth again to behold the
brightness of His glory, to abide in the sunshine of His smile.
In Him I have found solid peace, in Him I am resolved to find
it again, and oh, glorious possibility, I may regain what I have
lost, yea with abundant increase. . . .

158 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

The desires of a whole life to be consecrated to the service of
God seem revived in my soul. I feel sometimes as though 1
could do or suffer anything to glorify Him who has been so
wondrously merciful to me. I have besought Him most ear-
nestly to cut short His work and hide me in the grave if He
sees that my future life would not glorify Him more than the
past has done. I was formed for His glory and created for
" His praise," and if the end of my existence be not secured
of what value is life? — I would rather forego its momentary
joys than live any longer to dishonour my God, even if I be-
lieved death were annihilation ; but I will hope in the mercy I
have slighted, I will trust to the grace I have abused, for
strength to love the Lord my God with all my heart and to
walk in all His ordinances and statutes blameless. I have
enjoyed a precious season in prayer to-night, such liberty to
ask, such a melting soul I have not for a long time experienced ;
I did not forget you, my dearest ; no, I pleaded hard and ear-
nestly for your complete consecration to God ; nothing but this,
my dear William, will do for either yon or me.

Others may trim and oscillate between the broad and narrow
path, but for tis there is but one straight, narrow, shining path
of perfect devotedness, and if we walk 7iot in it, we are undone.
I hope, my Love, you are determined to be altogether a man of
God, nothing less will secure your safety or usefulness. God is
not glorified so much by preaching, or teaching, or anything else,
as by holy liz'ing. You acknowledge the possibility of going
round the circuit and satisfying the people, without winning
souls to God, to peace, and heaven. Yes, my Love, it is awfully
possible, and especially in your case ; but to live a holy life with-
out winning souls is just as impossible. Oh be determined to
know nothing amongst men but Christ, seek nothing amongst
them but His exaltation. His mediatorial renown ; God has
graciously given you the desire of your heart in opening your
way to the ministry of His gospel, and that in a sphere exactly
suited to your predilection and views of truth. He has given
you a wide and promising vineyard to keep and water for Him,
but remember, my Love, His eye is ever on you. He is trying
your heart. He is proving you not nozv in the furnace of
affliction and adversity, but in the sunshine of prosperity, in a
path paved with kindness and dangerously slippery. Oh watch !
— watch the motions of your heart, scrutinize your motives,
analyse your desires and aims, and keep your eye single, get
your heart filled afresh with the love of God and of souls, and
aim oidy at the glory of God, and then He will honour you
with abundant success ; you shall not labour in vain, nor spend
your strength for nought. But, my dearest, if you fail to give
Him all the glory, if self be mixed up with your efforts ; if an
unsanctified ambition fire your heart. He z^'ill, because He loves

XIII] HIS GUARDIAN ANGEL 159

you, try you and prove you with another discipHne, more pain-
ful, but less dangerous.

Monday, February 7, '53.

My dearest Love — I am glad you wrote me on Saturday,
for I had not received a letter since Wednesday till this morn-
ing, and should have felt very uneasy if it had not arrived. I
dreamed the other night that you had hurt your foot in getting
out of a gig, and were laid up through it, so be careful what
you are about.

I want to find in you my earthly all; I expect to do so ; I feel
too deeply to be able to write on this subject; whenever I try
my tears blind me ; you think I " underestimate your love " ;
wily, my dearest, do you think so? Tell me why. Perhaps I
write too fully all my fears and thoughts and hopes about the
future, but oh, I feel the importance of the relationship we are
to sustain to each other, and I do want us both to be prepared
to fill it with as much happiness to each other, and glory to God,
and good to others, as it is possible. Be assured, my Love, I
have confidence in you, I believe what you say, but you know,
William, I shall give up my all to you, my happiness, my life,
my pride, and perhaps to some extent my eternal destiny, and
is it unnatural for me sometimes to express a little anxiety!
But believe me, my ozvn dear Love, I have confidence in your
professions, and I never for one moment doubted the honour-
ableness of your intentions. As to the time of our union, I am
surprised you think it will be practicable so soon, and I cannot
think it is in any way necessary in order to prevent your being
unfaithful, notwithstanding all the temptations to which you
are exposed. You have often told me that your love was
founded on the deepest esteem of your soul, that I have the
preference of your judgment and soul, and that your love for
me was conceived in the entire absence of passion; this being
the case, and feeling some confidence in my own ability to
sustain this esteem, I am not so anxious as I otherwise should
be about the temptations you meet with, though I am thankful
to hear they are no temptation to you, " praise the Lord, oh
my soul." You know my heart, my dear William, and have
formed your own estimate of my character, your choice was not
made hastily nor without much rational calculation and earnest
prayer, and I am persuaded your good sense and Christian
principle will shield you in all circumstances ; you have a right
to expect grace where grace is needful to preserve you, because
you have not run into temptation by concealing your engage-
ment; you have acted honourably, and God zvill bless you.

Always speak when there is a necessity, and you will save
yourself from the snare of the fowler. You need not fear
your own heart because of Mr. C., your character and his are
quite opposite. I believe Miss Smith has been sincere and

i6o THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

truthful in her statements of all the facts. But, notwithstand-
ing my confidence in you, I am wilhng to come and help you as
soon as all things are equal ; in this I am sure, as in other
things, I am ready to consider your happiness, but you must
have a home before then. Whenever I come, I doubt not I
shall love the people, and feel an interest in the circuit second
only to yourself, and I hope to be very useful in it. I must
get more religion, and then all will be -well. I must get self
destroyed, and then the Lord may trust me to do good without
endangering my own soul. I am glad to hear you say you love
me best when you love Jesus most ; it is a good sign ; such
love cannot be displeasing to Him ; I hope we shall be able to
love Him in each other, and each other in Him, and that the
nearer our assimilation to Him, the nearer will be our assimila-
tion to each other. Glorious possibility, it may be so; let us
both resolve that it shall.

I intended to write only one sheet, but somehow I cannot
get into the way of writing short letters, so much crowds up to
say, that I cannot help it. Write me tzvo as long as you can
this week. Read over my last again, and think what there is
which it would give me pleasure to hear you respond to. . . .
Believe me, my dearest Love, yours in " unclouded love."

(In February i6, '53.)
My dearest Love — I have read your letter again since
waiting the enclosed and have opened the envelope to send you
another line.

You tell me that after three months' absence your heart
turns to me with more constancy than at first, and that you
look forward to a union as the consummation of earthly bliss,
etc., etc., and then add, " but you must believe this and rest
satisfied on it." I\Iy dear, be assured I do alzvays believe what-
ever you say; you seem to think me of a jealous, suspicious
nature ; William, I am not so. You say, " What will become of
us in the future if you cannot trust and thoroughly rest on con-
fidence in me?" My dearest, I can do so, if you do not give
me a)iy reason to distrust. I would never call myself by your
name, if I did not feel this confidence ; I tell you that I repose
in you with all my heart ; and it is only my distress when any-
thing you write forces into my mind a doubt ; not of your hon-
ourable intentions, I never did feel one doubt on that subject;
not of your esteem, I never doubted that ; not of your truthful-
ness, candour, and sincerity, I never doubted either; but of
what cuts deepest of all, of your deepest and tenderest love. I
never was tempted to doubt anything but this, and that only
when I thought you deficient in manifesting it. Now tell me
whether you acquit me of groundless, mean suspicion ; and if I

XIII] HIS GUARDIAN ANGEL i6i

have unconsciously given you pain, even though it has been to
reheve my own, do you forgive me? and in imagination clasp
me to your bosom and tell me all is well? Tell me on Mon-
day whether it is so, don't forget,

Catherine Mimiford to William Booth.

Friday afternoon {February, 1853).

My beloved William — Your very kind note rejoiced my
heart exceedingly this morning. I was dressing when it was
brought me, and I had just been thinking how ill I looked, but
after reading it I could see a sensible improvement in my coun-
tenance ; it struck me as I looked in the glass to complete my
toilet, how true that a " glad heart maketh the face to shine."
I have been reading the Proverbs of Solomon in bed in the
morning, and I never before was so struck with their practical
wisdom ; they will never wear out, they are applicable to all
times, with very few exceptions, I wish you would read a
chapter a day carefully and thoughtfully till you are through
them; do, it will please me and do you good. Bless you, my
dearest, your scrap cheered my soul and made all within me
rejoice; such struggles and such conquests convince me of the
reali'ty and depth of your affection more deeply than any tiling
else could possibly do. Oh, yes, this is an evidence of love,
which I highly appreciate; self-sacrifice is the touchstone of
affection, it proveth the reality of love. Yes, I believe now that
you love me, and besides, your aft'ection is purer and more
elevated for such triumphs. Oh, bless the Lord, I do rejoice.
Do not think this mere expression. Oh, I feel it, I do indeed
rejoice in it. ... I was thinking this morning about a few
words you said when here, about marrying; I have often
thought of them, I think they were spoken thoughtlessly ; I
think you would not thoughtfully utter them. Suppose, dear-
est, we never expected to realize any further union than we do
already, would you not marry for companionship, social and
domestic joys, communion of heart and mind, and the bliss of
being loved and of loving? Tell me next time. / feel that
these are the highest and strongest and paramount objects with
me ; I would marry for these alone, and so I believe you would,
though you said differently, but you did not stop to think. I
feel better satisfied with your letters than I ever did before,
they seem warmer and transparent, and I think we shall both
be gainers by writing oftener, especially if we try to enrich
every letter by at least one sentiment or thought worth writing.
I mean independent of news, etc., etc.

I am about the same in health as when I wrote last, the
relaxation came on before I had finished that last note ; but I
would not say so, because I knew it would trouble you, but it

i62 THE LIFE OF GExNERAL BOOTH [chap.

is better again to-day. I saw Mr. H. yesterday; he scolded
me for going because it was foggy, but thought me better. I
am to go on Tuesday. Let us hope in God ; pray for me. I
will remember two o'clock, don't you forget it. This is your
quarterly meeting; I have been thinking much about you, and
praying for direction. I do not wish you to wait four years
now ; since you were here I have felt convinced that your
well-being forbids it; otherwise I would be willing to purchase
future certainty and comfort at such a price; but if you could
not have less than £60, and Mr. R.'s iio would be £70, on which
I fear not to venture for the first three or four years, and then
you might get more than £60. I fear to advise you, I want you
to do right, not that I think it would be wrong to join them, —
oh, no ; their Constitution, etc., etc., and your own position,
would be more in unison with your views of the truth.

Sunday evening, March 20^ '53.
My own dear William —

• •■•••■

I had no intention to write this when I began, but it is out
of the abundance of my heart. Oh, my Love, I have felt
acutely about you, I mean your soul. I rejoice exceedingly to
hear how the Lord is blessing your labours, but as I stand at a
distance and contemplate the scene of action and all the cir-
cumstances attending it, I tremble with apprehension for the
object most beloved and nearest (except, I trust, the glory of
God and the honour of my Redeemer) my heart. I know how
possible it is to preach and pray and sing, and even shout,
while the heart is not right with God. I know how popularity
and prosperity have a tendency to elate and exalt self, if the
heart is not humble before God. I know how Satan takes
advantage of these things to work out the destruction (if possi-
ble) of one whom the Lord uses to pull down the strongholds
of his kingdom, and all these considerations make me tremble,
and weep, and pray for you, my dearest Love, that you may be
able to overcome all his devices, and having done all, to stand,
not in your own strength but in humble dependence on Him
who worketh " all in all." Allow me, dearest, to caution you
against indulging ambition to be either a revivalist or anything
else ; try to get into that happy frame of mind to be satisfied if
Christ be exalted, even if it be only by compelling you to lie at
the foot of the Cross and look upon Him. If your happiness of
soul comes to depend on the excitement of active service, what !
if God should lay His hand upon you and give you the cup of
suffering instead of labour! Nothing but a heart in unison
with His, and a will perfectly subdued, can then give peace.

Watch against jnere animal excitement in your revival

xiii] HIS GUARDIAN ANGEL 163

services. I don't use the term in the sense in v/hich anti-
revivahsts would use it, but onl}^ in the sense which Finney
himself would use it ; remember Caughey's silent, soft, heavenly
carriage ; he did not shout, there was no necessity ; he had a
more potent weapon at command than noise. I never did like
noise and confusion, only so far as I believed it to be the
natural expression of deep anxiety wrought by the Holy Ghost ;
such as the cries of the jailor, etc., etc. ; of such noise, produced
by such agency, the more the better. But, my Love, I do think
noise made by the preacher and the Christians in the church is
productive of evil only. As to that Isaac Marsden, he might be
sincere, but exceedingly injudicious and violent; I would not
attend one of his prayer meetings on any account. I don't
believe the Gospel needs such roaring and foaming to make it
effective, and to some minds it would make it appear ridiculous,
and bar them against its reception for ever. There was nothing
of this kind in that most powerful sermon ever preached by
Peter on the day of Pentecost ; the noise was made by the
people pricked to the heart, and was the eitect of that plain,
powerful, but calm and reasonable appeal to their consciences,
and not of Peter's own creating. This is in my opinion the
natural order of a revival. I should not have troubled you with
my views on the subject (indeed I think you know them pretty
fully ; if not, you will find them exactly in Finney's Lectures on
Revivals, which I consider the most beautiful and common-
sense work on the subject I ever read), only that you have been
wondering how I shall enter into it with you.

My dear, I trust, as far as I have ability and grace, I shall
be ready to strengthen your hands in the glorious work, by
takine under mv care to enli2:hten and soiard and feed the lambs
brought in under your ministry. I believe in instantaneous con-
version as firmly as you do ; at the same time I believe that half
of what is called conversion is nothing of the kind, and there
is no calculating the evil results of deception in a matter so
momentous. Great caution is necessary in dealing with in-
quirers, especially the young. My own brother was much in-
jured through injudicious treatment in this respect. He went
one Sunday evening to hear Mr. Richardson at Vauxhall. He
was quite unconcerned when he went, but was much wrought
upon under the sermon and induced to go to the communion
rail, where he professed to find peace. There certainly was a
change in him for a short time, but, alas ! there was no founda-
tion, and in a week or two the fair blossoms faded, and though
he continued to meet in class, his conduct was far worse than
it had ever been before, he was more impatient of restraint and
reproof, in fact his heart was closed against conviction by the
vain idea that he Vv^as converted. I only tell you this to illus-
trate what I mean, and not in any way to speak ill of my dear

i64 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

brother. Poor boy, he was young and ignorant in spiritual
things, and therefore easily deceived ; I hope and pray that the
Spirit of God will become his instructor, and reveal to him the
true state of his heart, and the broad and deep requirements
of His law. I have told you his case as one instance out of
scores of a similar kind, to caution you against pressing a con-
fession of faith in Christ before the mind is thoroughly en-
lightened and the soul fully broken down. Read Finney's
directions for the treatment of penitents ; they are excellent,
the best part of the work; if you are not well acquainted with
them be sure to read them. They are in his Lectures on Re-
vivals, and don't forget to recommend James's Anxious En-
quirer to young penitents; it is worth its weight (nay, far more
than that) in gold.

I know you will rightly estimate what I have written; don't
think that I consider your danger greater than my oivn would
be if placed in your circumstances ; alas, / of all beings should
be most in danger of being vainglorious and self-sufficient, and
perhaps it is because I feel this that I am so anxious about
you. However, tell me, my Love, in your next all about your
soul's secret experience; tell me whether you attend faithfully
to private prayer, and how you feel when alone with God. This
is the surest test by which to judge of your state, and you never
needed it more frequently than nozv ; the harass and turmoil
of business might be less congenial, but depend on it, my dear,
it was not more dangerous to your soul's true interest. It was
not more necessary to watch and pray then than it is now. If
you get yours quite right with God and keep it so, nothing
can hinder you from being a useful man, and I believe God
will signally own you as His servant; but if you keep back
anything from God, if you suffer self to share the glory, He
will frustrate your designs and spoil your happiness. Do, my
Love, get all condemnation cleared away, and be able to look
straight to the Throne for your encouragement and reward,
and then all you can desire while your heart is partially carnal
will then be given you, though not valued for its own sake ;
like Solomon, who, when he desired simply and singly wisdom,
heavenly wisdom, gained both riches and honour and glory as
an overplus. God is so good. If we could only see Him as
He is, we should desire nothing beside Him either in earth or
heaven. Oh, let us pray and watch to get our eyes fully
opened to behold His beauty, and singly fixed on His glory.
Oh, it is a glorious state to be in :

The bliss of those who fully dwell,

Fidly in Him believe.
Is more than angel tongues can tell.

Or angel minds conceive.

XIII] HIS GUARDIAN ANGEL 165

I know it is, and I hope yet again to experience it, '' then will
I teach transgressors His ways" (His ways of marvellous
mercy, truth, love, and faithfulness towards sinful man),
" I w'ill declare His faithfulness, and sinners shall be converted
to Him."

Brixton, March 30, '53.

My dearest William — Your letter came to hand about an
hour since, and I can attend to nothing till I have written you a
line in reply. I never was more surprised in my Hfe than on
reading it to find the aspect my last seemed to wear in your eyes.
I am sure, dearest, the state of your own mind makes all the
difference to your interpretation of my letters. You should
not read mine as you would a stranger's, you should bear in
mind what I am, and what a sentiment means when dictated by
Love and a deep and absorbing desire that you should appear
in the eyes of others as a man of God " thoroughly furnished
to every good work," and in the sight of God as one pure and
upright in heart seeking only His glory. I zvas not when I
wrote " dreadfully put about and harassed in my mind," but
the Spirit of God had been operating powerfully upon my
heart, and I felt afresh awakened to the superiority and im-
portance of spiritual things, and of course as I felt it for my-
self I felt it for you; but I think I spoke tenderly and care-
fully ; as to scolding, I never felt less like it than when I wrote
that letter, for my whole soul was melted into tenderness and
self-abasement. Do read it again the first opportunity and
then read yours which I have enclosed ; not, my Love, in a
spirit of retaliation, but only that you may read it now your
mind is calmer. You could not possibly construe what I said
as against revivals, or even in depreciation of them, when I so
carefully guarded my words, and I don't know why you can-
not understand it, I think it was plain enough. But I see you
are dreadfully harassed, and most deeply do I sympathize
with you ; indeed, for me to be happy while I think you are not
so is impossible; though I was not unhappy last week. I re-
joiced with you in your prosperity ; but at the same time I know
even that was dangerous, and expressed the anxiety I felt,
thinking you would rightly understand me, but I perceive you
cannot bear it; well, dearest, scold me if you like, blame me
or what else you will, but faithful as well as loving I must ever
be ; my conscience compels me, and the more I love you the
more I feel it a duty.

As to my estimate of you, surely you don't feel a fear that it
is too low, while I am willing to give my happiness to so great
an extent into your keeping; then don't call it scolding or
seem hurt when I give you a gentle caution and try to excite
you to more heart consecration to your Father and mine,

i66 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

while at the same time I confess to you my own unfaithful-
ness and deplore my want of love to the Saviour, and with all
sincerity declare the consciousness I have of my own unfitness
thus to stimulate you. When you seem to think me officious or
bitter, or unnecessarily anxious, it makes it doubly painful and
cuts to my very soul. As to our being separated in the sphere
of our action in the Church, I can only say I never dreamed of
such a thing. / hope for perfect unity and fellowship in all
plans, and least of all should I think of separation in the
Church of God.

Monday evening, June 13, "53.

]\Iy own dear William — I sincerely thank you for your
kind note of Saturday, it did me good this morning. I like it
better than either of last week's, there is more soul in it, and
only one fault, viz. being too short. But I know your time is
precious, and therefore will not complain. Bless you, I ain
glad you so fully reciprocate the sentiments in my last, it re-
joices my soul and fills me with hope to hear you say so, but
I am sorrv vou do not write a little more in anszver to mv let-
ters. I do not mean, dearest, that you should notice every-
thing : that would be a task my love would not impose ; but
some things I often wish you would take up and write a few
words in the way of answer ; you can easily guess what they
are. You promised me to write a line sometimes in pencil
after retiring for the night, or when walking by the wayside.
Do sometimes, there's a dear. A stray thought, especially
when tender and heavenly, will be to me a gem of great value.
Do not interpret this as finding fault ; it is not ; it is only a gen-
tle remembrance. I know how your time is occupied and
your mind also, and do most fully appreciate your kindness in
writing so often. The unexpected knock of the postman al-
ways excites feelings of the tenderest affection towards you,
and causes me to bless you with increased fervency of soul,
so true is Tupper's proverb, *' A letter timely writ is as a rivet
to the chain of aft'ection, and a letter untimely delayed is as
rust to the solder."

I was \try glad to hear you got on so well at the School
feast; you ask me for some ideas for speeches on such occa-
sions. I am sure I can send you nothing worth having, and
besides I do not know the style of speaking acceptable ; I sup-
pose the design, importance, and results of Sabbath School
teaching form the principal topics, and I am sure you know
far more on these subjects than I do. ]My soul feels deeply
enough the vast importance of good moral culture for the
youthful mind, but from the specimens I have seen of Sunday
Schools. I fear they are to a great extent ineffective : but I
hope I have not seen fair specimens : I don't think I have.

xm] HIS GUARDIAN ANGEL 167

However, it seems to me that the Church generally wants
pressing home upon its conscience the responsibility resting
upon it with regard to the rising generation ; it should be made
to feel this one fact, that of all spheres of labour this is the
most important, of all interests at home or abroad this is the
most momentous ; of all its efforts for the extension of Chris-
tianity and the glory of God, this promises the largest amount
of success, because the present generation is passing away and
will inevitably pass away without being thoroughly impreg-
nated with Divine truth, and whether the next will come upon
the stage of action either so impregnated or not, it rests with
the Church to determine. Fifty years hence where will be
the men and women who are now the adult population of our
world ? Almost without exception swept off one by one ; like
the flowers in Autumn, they will have ceased to live and move
and think, their influence will have died with them, and but a
few eminent names will survive the wreck; but the children
who now hang upon the breast and prattle on the knee will
then be the living, reasoning, influential men and women of
the world, and the parents of future generations; destined per-
haps in the providence of God to wdeld a mightier influence for
good or evil than any which have preceded them since the
ocean of human life rolled over our earth ; how transcendently
important then is it to train up these young beings (the foun-
tains of so much future influence and power) in the right
way, how important to impart early (before the storms of in-
iquity beat on their defenceless souls and render them im-
pervious to holy impressions) right principles of action, light
for the conscience, food for the soul, and knowledge for the
mind. I feel this too deeply to express half what I feel, if I
could do so I could make a speech myself, but my views on this
subject are too large to be conveyed in words. I never look
at a little child but I feel unutterable things: What is he?
What will he become, and what might he be? What eternal
destiny awaits the immortal jewel lodged in that beautiful
little casket? What influences will gather round it in this
life's pilgrimage? Wha»t friends will aid it? What foes try
to ruin it? are questions my soul shrinks from answering even
to itself.

Wednesday evening, June, '53.
My beloved William — ... I am glad you, my Love, are
from under their dominion. Depend upon it that is an iron
rule which stifles conscience and binds the soul ; poor, nay,
noble Kilham had courage to resist it, but in doing so he
proved its strength and endured its inflictions. Many men
have not such courage, and doubtless many amongst them, even
their best men, are bowed down in spirit and sorely oppressed,
not daring to open their mouths. AVhile such powerful, or-

i68 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

ganized bodies exist with so many of the elements of pure
despotism in their constitution, it may be expedient and even
necessary for other large and more liberally constituted bodies
to exist in order to compete with them and prevent their com-
plete ascendancy if this be God's method ; the amalgamation
of the splits of Methodism must be desirable, but it wants deep
consideration. Be cautious, my Love, let no personal benefit
weigh an atom with you. First be fully persuaded in your ozvn
mind that such a step would be for the good of man and the
glory of God, and then work for it with all the skill and
caution necessary, but if not fully persuaded and yet not sat-
isfied to remain in your present position amongst the Reformers,
tJien consider whether you had better seek for yourself alone
(leaving the movement out of the question) admission amongst
them, think over their rules and learn as much as possible
about the way in which they are carried out, and lay the matter
continually and earnestly before God, for it is an important
matter to submit yourself to a conference of any kind; doubt-
less it would be to our temporal comfort ; I feel this, but that
is secondarv. Be fullv satisfied it is your way, and then we can
rejoice in our prosperity without any misgivings as to the path
of duty.

Bless you a thousand times, I only want to see you happy
and useful, and I care not where or how, provided it be ac-
cording to God's will. You will excuse all this advice, etc.
I did not think of writing thus, but the subject agitates my
heart and so I could not but give it utterance. Those thought-
fully expressed words about preferring to go back to business
to staying with the Reformers have made me feel anxious,
not because I wish you to remain in your present position, nor
because it may defer our union, no, only because I fear you
should get wrong, though I very much question whether the
movement is exactly your sphere. You must consider the law
of your own mind. Do pray very earnestly about it, seek
specially and solemnly God's guidance ; search your heart be-
fore Him in secret, be determined, bring your soul to it in
spite of all obstacles, and I am sure He will direct you. I
have begun to pray about it regularly. As to business, I be-
lieve you may just as faithfully serve God in it as in the
Ministry; whichever is your right place there you can best
serve Him, and He knows which is; and more, He can in
defiance of circumstances put you in it. Oh that He may thus
graciously fix the bounds of your habitation and choose our
inheritance for us ; do not take any steps in order to marry
which you would not take if you did not know me. I hope
Mr. L. does not think that I am in a hurry to be married, and
have unsettled your mind because you say, he thinks we v/ant
to get married. Much as I feel this separation and absence I

XIII] HIS GUARDIAN ANGEL 169

am willing, nay, desirous to endure it as long as the Lord
wills, and that I feel it so much is the fault of my heart (if
it is a fault) and not of my judgment.

I shall swell this to the usual length; I often think of the
Frenchman's apology for a long letter, viz. " excuse the length
of this, I have not time to make it shorter." I feel it is most
appropriate to me, for to prune and digest mine would take
far longer than to write them as I do.

• ■•••••

Thursday afternoon. — Aly dearest Love, in reading over the
preceding, it struck me that you might gather from it some
objection on my part to your entering the New Connexion,
therefore I refer to the subject again to assure you that I have
not; I only wish you to act as your judgment and conscience
dictate without reference to marrying; do not think of that
otherwise than as God would approve ; I mean, do not let your
desire tozvards it cause yon to take any step your conscience
does not fully approve. Of course if you see a thing to be
right, then there is- no harm in considering its temporal ad-
vantages, but I need not attempt to instruct you, neither need
I fear the integrity of your motives. I should like to see your
letter to The Times if it is inserted. How is it signed? Send
me word.

I hope you are studying ; you do not mention it. Be deter-
mined to make the most of every moment; do not let trifles
interrupt your study hours and attention. Do, my Love, work
hard for yourself so that you may make many rich. Remem-
ber time flies, a moment at a time. Oh let us use the moments.
I am doing so, and consequently am progressing, at least a lit-
tle, according to my ability. I am much encouraged about the
music.

Wednesday evening, June, '53.
My own dear Love — Oh how I should like to see you to-
night and hear you speak to me in tones of sweet affection and
encouragement. You will be sorry to hear that I have felt very
low to-day and yesterday ; the principal cause of this depres-
sion is a deep and painful sense of my own unfitness to enter
upon the duties and responsibilities of life ; I feel my weakness
and deficiencies most bitterly, and have shed some hitter tears
because of it. I have confidence in you as to battling with the
trials of life, or I think I should sink into despair, for I feel I
am not fit for the world ; but you will be my defence and shield,
my prop and succour, will you not, dearest? You w^ill bear
with my weaknesses and faults, hush my fears, strengthen my
hopes and efforts, and try to enter into the indefinable emo-
tions of my sensitive heart. I shall at least have one being in
the world able to sympathize with my soul's feelings and to

170 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

understand the peculiarities of my mind and heart. Oh how
sweet! and that being holding the most endearing of rela-
tionships, bound to me by the tenderest ties ; bless you, I think
I need not fear the depth of your sympathy, the strength or
durability of your affection ; if I did fear either I should be
most unhappy, but I do not; I believe you capable of more than
I once did; I think we shall be one in Jicart and soul, and oh
this is everything; in body we shall have continually and pain-
fully to part, but in spirit we may ahvays be united.

I think a great deal about your being out so much, I do
hope your present unsettled and whirlabout life will not beget
a distaste for pure domestic Jionie bliss, and oh I do trust, that
before we have a home Providence will make it possible for
you to be more in it. Bless you, I feel indescribable things
to-night, my soul is so full I cannot write at all collectedly.
Oh, if I could but pour it into your ear; it does seem liard
just now to be parted. I feel as though I could fly to you, my
whole soul is drawn towards you, if I could explain zi'hat I
feel, and hozv I feel, and why I feel, and all I feel, I am sure
you would sympathize with me and clasp me more tenderly
to your heart than ever you did before. I say this because I
know, that although perhaps I feel too deeply, and too keenly,
yet the class of feelings and their causes and objects are pleas-
ing to God, they are not selfish but purest benevolence, but oh,
they are painful in the extreme.

Pray for me. I will not write thus, perhaps it grieves you,
though I hope not. Do not call it sentimentalism, dearest, it
is the only reality of life; what are all the so-called realities
of this world when compared with one pure affection, one re-
fined emotion of one human soul? Their reality fades like
the bubble on the wave ; soul, and spiritual things are the only
realities we have to do with, and all relating to them are to us
of paramount importance. Let us estimate everything accord-
ing to its influence on each other's mind and heart; to inflict
bodily suffering were a kindness compared with distress of
mind and those who can feel deepest themselves will be most
chary of the feelings of those they love. May the Lord give
us grace to study each other, and love as He has enjoined. I
often wonder whether others feel on these subjects as I do ; if
they did, surely there would be more happy unions. I scarce
ever realize the happiness, for thinking of the duties and re-
sponsibilities of married life ; I am so anxious to be a good
wife and mother, and cannot think of the joy of being either.
Never mind, dearest, my heart will not be the less sensible of
the joy zvhen it comes, and perhaps better prepared for it.
Oh for grace to do my duty to you in all respects, and to those
whom God may give us, and to the Church, and to the world,
and to myself, and thus doing it in all the relations of life to

xni] HIS GUARDIAN ANGEL 171

serve my God in serving His chosen ones, the service He Him-
self has required.

Monday night, June, '53.
My own dear William — How I should like to see you to-
night and tell you lots of feelings, thoughts, hopes, and fears
which would take too much time and patience to write; pa-
tience is a thing I am very deficient in. Oh for more of it.
I have felt exceedingly irritable to-day, the music has tried me
almost beyond endurance. I could freely abandon it and
never touch it more. I fear the result will never repay the
time and labour. Once to-day I raised my eyes from the
music and through some bitter tears looked at your likeness,
and said to myself, " William, I do this for thee." Yes, all
the other motives would fail to urge me forward ; for no other
being could I endure the drudgery, but you like it, it will make
home a happier place to you, it will help to raise our souls to
heaven, so I will persevere in my arduous undertaking; it is
an arduous one, everybody considers it so. Miss . . . never
knew any one begin to learn after they were grown up, but I
will for your dear sake go on. Measure my love for you by
this standard; think of three and four hours a day, self-deny-
ing toil, especially trying to one whose nerves have been shat-
tered and whose powers of application and endurance weak-
ened by long and wearing pain, and then say whether the love
that prompts it is a trifle; but I know you estimate my affec-
tion. I am quite happy on that subject now. Bless you. I
do hope we shall be dear to each other as the apple of an eye.
If I thought that you soberly think what you say about my hav-
ing no faults and infirmities to bear with, I should indeed be
unhappy, and begin to think I had unintentionally given you a
false view of my character. Believe me, dearest (and I know
myself better than any one else knows me), I have as many as
will require a great deal of grace, deep affection and much pa-
tience to endure, so set about cultivating these virtues as
quickly and effectually as possible.

Tuesday afternoon. — Thank you, darling, for the kind words
contained in yours this morning ; I had been thinking that I had
written too passionately last night and that I ought to restrain
the tide of feeling more than I do in writing to you ; but no,
now you write so affectionately I will let it root on and push
out, just as it will, without seeking to cool or restrain it, so that
you may know of what I am made. Bless you, you have no
reason to fear about true conjugal bliss if your love is only
deep and fervent; I think I have a soul capable of enjoying
and yielding as much as most ; but remember I have its almost
invariable failings, capable of deepest feeling on one subject as
well as another, therefore liable to anger as well as love. But

172 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

I told you enough of this last night, and though I have no new
thoughts to send you would feel disappointed on Wednesday
morning if there was no letter, and perhaps anxious about the
fate of your Saturday's note.

• ••••••

July i8, '53.

• ••••••

You ask me about Miss M. She is a simple-hearted, pretty,
pleasant girl ; I suppose well educated ; can play very nicely.
I like her very much as far as she goes ; I appreciate true sim-
plicity and sincerity of character wherever I find it, and I think
she possesses it. She is not in the least intellectual, quite
ordinary in capacity and not very ladylike in manners, though
she has been at school four years ; but character is everything.
I like her character far, far better than Mr. Hale's sisters who
are more polished. You will not misunderstand me when I
say that I never yet met with a female friend able to understand
or appreciate my views and feelings on the great subjects which
appear to me the only realities of life; all whom I know seem
to live in a different world ; they look not at the future, they
seem to be shut up in the present little paltry things of every-
day life; I am grieved that it is so; the mothers of humanity
want different training ; surely the day is dawning ; I believe
it is ; may it rapidly progress. I often have wished I had one
able to sympathize with my views and reciprocate them, but
now I have you I do not mind so much.

/ am delighted; it makes me happy to hear you speak as you
do about home. Yes, if you will seek home, love home, be
happy at home, I will spend my energies in trying to make it
a more than ordinary one ; it shall, if my ability can do it, be
a spot sunny and bright, pure and calm, refined and tender, a
fit school in which to train immortal spirits for a holy and
glorious heaven; a fit resting-place for a spirit pressed and
anxious about public duties ; but Oh, I know it is easy to talk,
I feel how liable I am to fall short; but it is well to purpose
right, to aim high, to hope much ; yes, we will make home to
each other the brightest spot on earth, we will be tender,
thoughtful, loving, and forbearing, will we not? yes, we -will.

Tuesday night, August 2, '53.

My own dear Love — I wept tears of gratitude and joy
this morning over your kind note. Oh how my soul praised
God for His preserving mercy ; bless you, how I should like to
nurse you, and press your poor bruised face to mine. These
accidents make me feel very anxious ; surely, surely, they are
not going to be frequent occurrences. You were not to blame
this time, as you had no warning beforehand, but my Love,
never venture behind that horse again; it is wonderful if you

-^'in] HIS GUARDIAN AXGEL 173

have escaped serious injury, but I hardly feel satisfied on that
subject; I do hope you have been to a doctor. After such a
violent shaking you ought to have some suitable medicine.
Now if you have not been to one, he sure and do so. I hope
you will rest till you are well, it tries me sadly to think of you
taking your appointments in that state ; I think the local preach-
ers, must be rather inhuman if they are not willing to supply
for you in such a case, and you really are imprudent if you do
not let them, if they are willing: but I trust you are better
quite, by this time. I should have written to-day if I had not
posted one yesterday. I mistook Thursday for Tuesday in
Saturday's letter, and thought you would be home on Tuesday.
I hope the letter came before you left home this morning. I
have felt very tenderly about you all day. Oh what a mercy
you were not killed or some of your limbs broken; if you had
been killed as scores have been in a similar way, how would it
have been with your soulf I have thought much about the
temptation you mentioned in the scrap on Saturday, about
the reality of spiritual things, you said it was something more
than temptation, Xo! it is not, neither is it peculiar to you; it
is common to all. I have had it presented, as almost every
other which Satan has in his hellish treasury, but I think he
has plied that with as little effect a's any.

I always find it best to appeal at once to my consciousness; I
knozi' the religion of Jesus is a reality just as I know I live, and
breathe, and think, because my consciousness testifies it, and
that is a more powerful thing than Satan's intellect or logic;
it disarms him at once; on other subjects reasoning with him
has been my bane, but on tJiis I never reason, I refer him to
times and things gone by and my conscience says that was
real; if not let me have over again the blissful delusion ; but I
knozi' it zi'as real, for it bore me up on the threshold of eternity,
and made death my friend, there is nothing like the light of
eternity to show us z^'Jiat is real and what is not. Now, my
dear, how did you feel when that accident seemed to poise you
between life and death, time and eternity? Where did Satan
hide himself just then? Did he come with his foul sugges-
tions about the delusion or mystery of godliness ? I think not,
he would take care to keep out of that track when your con-
sciousness was fullv awake. Oh, mv Love, watch! Satan is
a subtle foe, he knows just the temptations most suited to
hinder your usefulness, and he knows that just in proportion
to your ozi'n personal faith in, and experience of, the glorious
gospel, will be your success in preaching it to others ; he knows
( none better) that it is the preacher who can say *' I testify
that which / do knozc and have seen and handled of the word
of life," which is mighty through God to the pulling down of
his strongholds. It is such men he fears and hates, and pur-

174 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

sues ; but it is such whom his \^anquisher loves, trusts, and
upholds.

Oh, dearest, be yon one of them, be the champion of real
godliness, cost what it may, knoz^* in your own soul the mighty
power of the grace of God, and then you will preach it with
azufiil influence, and abundant success ; it is real, more real
than all beside, the mightiest power in this wonderful universe ;
true, the mystery of godliness is great, but it is given to the real
followers of Jesus " to know the mysteries of the Kingdom "
as far as is needful for them; but Satan makes so much ado
about the mysteries of grace, as though mystery were peculiar
to it, when all nature is enveloped in mystery ; and what can
be more mysterious than " thought," — w^hat is thought, mem-
ory, emotion? How does thought arise? How does memory
store up, and hide, and years after pour forth its awful or
pleasing treasures? Who can explain these common opera-
tions of the mind, and what in the Bible is more mysterious?
— and yet I am as conscious that I think and remember as that
I live and breathe. All is mystery around me, above me,
below me, within me, before me, but yet I believe, act, plan,
live, according to w^hat I can understand, and must be content to
wait the solution of these mysteries at some future enlarge-
ment and enlightenment of my faculties.

All men do this, as to the natural world ; they acknowledge
their ignorance, but yet believe in it and act upon it, as though
they perfectly understood every law and operation and tend-
ency ; then if mystery is so common in this material world,
how absurd of Satan to urge it as an objection to the reality of
a system which professes for its object the perfecting of what
is confessedly in itself the most mysterious of all mysteries,
viz. the human soul? H the gospel were less mysterious, it
would lack one of the characters of the Divine signature; if
it were less simple and comprehensible it would lack adapta-
tion to its great object. Oh then, let us hug it to our bosoms,
and exult in its glorious simplicity in dealing with us ; and rev-
erence and bow down before its profundity in all that relates
to its infinite Author ; let us, my Love, experience what it holds
forth, and though Satan may gnash upon us with his teeth
he cannot hurt us. Let us get a firmer footing upon this rock,
and we shall have a real foundation to stand upon when all
that is unreal is passing away.

Cut I forget to whom I write ; you know all this better than
I do : you are not ignorant of Satan's devices, nor of the armour
best adapted to meet him in ; nevertheless, what / say may help
you by way of " stirring up your mind." Alay the Lord own
it to this end, if it be not beneath His notice. I should not
have said that. Nothing is too insignificant for His attention
and blessing if prompted by a pure motive, bless His holy

XIII] HIS GUARDIAN ANGEL 175

name ! He loves to use weak instruments to baffle the designs
of His proud foe, and perhaps He may deign to use this;
whether or not, I had no idea of writing thus when I began ; I
have been quite led off, and all I intended to say is left unsaid.

Friday noon, August 5, '53.

My own dear William — You will be surprised to receive
a great budget like this, after receiving two letters this week
long enough for a fortnight's epistles ; well, I cannot refrain
from sending you the enclosed pamphlet though I know you
could get one in your book parcel for less than the postage will
cost, but I cannot bear to let you remain a day without it.
Allow me to introduce the subject of it, whom 1 have heard
and seen, and for raising up of whom my soul magnifies the
Lord. First then, read the little handbill enclosed containing
a letter from Mr. Gough's pastor, read it every word, and be-
lieve me it falls far short of the reality ; when you have read it,
turn to the last three pages, or rather the 44th page of the
pamphlet, and read the pen and ink sketch of him, and de-
pend upon it, it is below the reality — as a description. When
you have read it begin the sketch of his life and I know you
cannot help reading it all, be sure to read it at once — and
then lend it, and when you have your book parcel order some
to sell. I never read anything with such intense interest in my
life, it is true; its subject is a living man and a Christian, and
I have heard him for myself.

I was at the Hall last night, and although it was the third
oration the body of the Hall was very full, and the platform
above half full, at 2s. 6d. a ticket. I did not intend going again,
but I really cannot stay away, so I am going, all well, to-night
to the Whittington Club ; talk of eloquence and oratory ! I
never heard any before in comparison with this. I thought I
must have come out, it almost overpowered me. I have wit-
nessed much enthusiasm in that Hall, but nothing to equal it
last night, kept up through the whole address.

Oh in some parts it was awful; my father sat next to me,
he kept turning so pale and his hands and the muscles of his
face were in most sensible emotion ; his description of the
gradual process of intemperance could only have been given by
one who had experienced it ; it was truly awful, but oh splendid
in the extreme and true, as God is true. His eloquence is
irresistible; the people seemed spellbound while his graphic
passages lasted, and then one, loud, prolonged shout and cheer
gave him breathing time. He spoke most powerfully on the
mighty influence of woman, and told some telling anecdotes
on the subject, he appealed to the young ladies present with
earnestness which I trust sank into many hearts, and what he
said to young men is beyond eulogiuui, nay, I will give over; I

176 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

am mortified that I cannot give you any idea of it, and oh it is
all accompanied by such genuine self-abasement and Christian
feeling that no one could help being electrified ; but it is useless
me writing, I am so excited. I have been to three or four
places this morning to get persons to go to-night who I know
are going down to destruction through drink. Praise the
Lord, all have received me kindly and three are going. One
of them is the poor man I told you about, he has just been here
for a ticket I bought him last night, and is going ! Praise
the Lord with me ; he tells me that he has not tasted a drop
since I first spoke to him, and that he begins to feel better, and
indeed his parched lips and palsied limbs begin to assume a
more healthful appearance, but oh the struggle is fearful. ]\[r.
Gough described it last night, as next to hell itself, but the
Lord is able to keep him from falling, and I have confidence
in Him, and I intend to work more in this good cause.

Oh how I praised God last night for raising up this man ;
I believe his visit will be a blessed epoch in the history of the
cause in this countrv. The Secretarv said the committee were
determined to keep him longer than his intention ; if so, he will
most likely visit the principal towns, if he stays much longer
I do hope you will hear him. Oh I praised God for giving
me to see the importance of abstaining from the accursed stufT,
and I praised Him too for enabling me to keep my early reso-
lution to give my affections to no man who was not of the same
mind ; bless the Lord that we both see alike here, and I shall
be able to train up our children perfect Samsons. Oh do all
you can in this cause, speak to moderate drinking professors;
those clogs on the wheel of the temperance chariot destined to
triumph in its march round our world in spite of their indiffer-
ence and opposition. Get some copies of this pamphlet and
distribute them either with or without being paid; if the people
will not buy them, lend them or give them away, make them
read it.

And now, how are you? Do not think that in this excite-
ment I have felt no concern about you. I have very much.
Even last night in the Hall, I felt anxious about your poor
bruised body and I do hope you are quite restored. Oh I did
wish you were with me last night, you would have been en-
raptured; if he stays in London you must come.

PS. — Read every word of the pamphlet.

Monday afternoon, I5.8.'53.

My Love — Your very kind note did not come to hand till
after one o'clock. You make me smile about your dreams ;
and did you really feel so bad at the thoughts of losing me?
Well, I do not think you have any reason to fear losing me in
any way which would imply dishonour or breach of faith on
my part, and I suppose it must have been some such phantom

xm] HIS GUARDIAN ANGEL 177

to be worse than death. Dreams are strange things ; I often
have some very exhausting and unpleasant ones, and especially
since I have been so unwell. But I am not superstitious about
dreams; they are generally the effect of physical derangement,
I think. However, supposing Satan had power to terrify the
imagination during sleep, he cannot harm us by dreams, and I
defy him to separate thee and me by any such means ; while
you are pure and true, according to my standard of truth and
purity, nothing, nor any being can come between us. Oh, it
does me good to hear how you used Saturday. Well, go on
and you will reap a rich reward. The knowledge of such
effort will make me happier than thousands of gold and silver.
I want you to be a man and a Christian, and then I am satis-
fied, but short of that I never could be. I might hide my dis-
content, but it would eat out the vitals of my affection and
leave me either to make you miserable or die in the attempt to
act a false part. I have such views of what you should be, and
I have always had such views of what the man must be to
whom I gave myself, that it would be bitterer than gall to
find myself bound to one in mind and head manifestly un-
worthy. Oh, I always prayed against it, and I believe the
Lord will guide me. Bless you, I have confidence in you, I
will have confidence, and I will be thoroughly happy, about you,
and then my health will improve, I trust.

We now have as significant a letter as any in the series,
a letter of Catherine Mumford's, breathing the deepest
spirituality and revealing the mystical element in her
nature — that element which beautified and sanctified her
revivalism, and rendered her one of the great figures in
religious history. If throughout all her other letters one
can see the mother in her heart bending with solicitude
over the life of her lover, in this letter one can hear the very
beating of the wings of his guardian angel.

Thursday afternoon, December i, '53.
My own dear William — I experienced great pleasure in
the perusal of your Saturday's letter, especially as you re-
ferred to my remarks about my thoughts respecting our future
oneness of sympathy and feeling; you cannot appreciate the
pleasure it gives me after writing a sheet or two out of the
fulness of my heart, to receive a response to the particular
subject on which I write. I never knew that you loved me be-
cause of my capacity for deep feeling; on the contrary, I have
often felt discouraged from writing all I felt by the idea that

1/8 THE LIFE OF GEXER.\L BOOTH [chap.

you would count it extravagant enthusiasm, or wild senti-
mentalism. . . .

Your Tuesday's notes arrived safe, and I was rejoiced by
both to hear of the continued prosperity of the work, though
sorry you were so worn out ; I fear the effect of all this excite-
ment and exertion upon your health, and though I would not
hinder your usefulness, I would caution you against an in-
judicious prodigality of your strength.

Remember a long life of steady, consistent, holy labour will
produce twice as much fruit as one shortened and destroyed
by spasmodic and extravagant exertions; be careful and spar-
ing of your strength when and where exertion is unnecessary.

I have thought much about the New Connexion, and I am
sorry you propose being decided by what the quarterly meet-
ing may do, because I do not see what that has to do with
the future. . . .

I think, dearest, if you would sit down deliberately and take
both sides of the question into consideration, and in the fear of
God decide according to your best judgment, you would save
yourself much unnecessary anxiety and vacillation. Decide
independent of the quarterly meeting; it is for the future you
are to think and act, not for the present ; then decide for the
future, uninfluenced by the present, trusting in God to clear
the way and fit yon for the position, if the step be agreeable
to His will. If our prospects fail here, our path being blocked
up, and the interests of our family demand it, I will brave all
the trials of the voyage and the climate and cheerfully accom-
pany you across the Atlantic, because then I should feel " Well,
we tried the only path conscientiously open to us in our native
land and it failed; therefore if evil befall us we shall be sus-
tained by the belief that it is in the path of duty and in the
order of Providence " ; whereas if we fail to try this door and
our prospects darken, I shall always think we missed our way.

I was truly sorry to hear of the ground which Satan has
chosen from which to attack you ; I appreciate your confidence
in opening your heart to me as I know you would not to an-
other in the world, and as a " faithful friend is the medicine
of life, and he who fears the Lord shall find one," I must try
to help you to search your heart and encourage you to look for
the victory over self which your Saviour has promised you.

You ask if such feelings as you refer to are not evidences of
a bad heart. I answer, they are evidences of a partially un-
sanctified one; and, my Love, just in proportion to your satis-
faction in the simple fact of God being glorified and souls being
saved, by any instrument whatsoever, just so far is your eye
single and your motive pure in your own individual efforts.
Try yourself, dearest, by this standard rather than by your
feelings in the excitement of a prayer meeting when you are the

xiii] HIS GUARDIAN ANGEL 179

principal agent. T speak with all tenderness, and as the be-
loved of my soul I tell you, that I see ambition to be your chief
mental besetment, 7wt a besetment if rightly directed and sanc-
tified, but which unsanctified and " warped to an idol object "
will make your life a martyrdom, a lingering self-crucifixion.
Ambition even to save souls may not be sanctified ; but am-
bition simply to glorify God, the soul sunk down, rather risen
lip, to the one sublime idea of glorifying God, must be sancti-
fied. A mind fastened on this one object will take pleasure
in infirmities even (such as want of talent, etc., etc.), that the
power of Christ may rest upon it, " being willing to be thought
a fool " if by such means the wisdom of Christ may be mani-
fested and glorified. TJiis, dearest, is, in my opinion, full con-
secration to God, this is being like Christ, and religion in all
its stages, I see more than ever to be, assimilation to Him,
more or less perfect.

Look at the life of Christ, analyze His conversations with
the Jews, and what object does He ever seem to keep upper-
most, what was His chief aim, but to " glorify His Father."
and so I conceive the bliss of Heaven consists in the realiza-
tion of that one object, the glory of God. . . . Try, dearest, to
get the ambition of your soul fixed on the glory of your God,
and it will bear you up to one of Heaven's high thrones, and
enrich your brow with one of its unfading crowns ; get low at
the foot of the cross, and lie there till God's glory becomes all
and in all to your soul ; tell the Lord you want to feel willing to
crawl as it were, behind every other Christian, so far as the esti-
mation of man goes, if by this means you can best promote
His glory ; tell Him that you don't want talent and popularity
if you can glorify Him better without them. Tell Him your
will and desire is to be holy, leaving Him to choose your em-
ployment and position, and ask Him for the inward baptism
of the Holy Ghost, that what you already desire may become
the actual delight of your life. . . .

Oh my dear William, depend upon it, it is not talent or
learning (however estimable as instruments), nor might nor
pov/er, but '' My Spirit, saith the Lord." It is a soul spending
itself simply for this one end which God will honour and
which He always has honoured since He first spoke to man;
and just in proportion as other motives operate will He cause
disappointment and vexation of spirit. The present state
of the Church proves this ; the Church has got machinery
enough, talent of the first order, numbers, organizations, money,
etc., etc., etc., and God seems to be standing aloof looking on
and saying " You are trying to do My work in your own
strength and in your own way, trying to build up systems and
teach men's intellects, and please your own fancies, instead of
ever remembering My word ' zuithout Me ye can do nothing,'

i8o THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

and taking hold of the strength and grace I hold out to you
and going forth for My glory only to save mankind." This
appears to me to be exactly the present position of the Church,
God's glory is lost sight of, and man is set up in His place and
worshipped ; surely, then, God is just and true in withholding
His Spirit till His Church learns her own weakness.

I believe it is with ministers a revival must begin, their self-
sufficiency must be destroyed before God can use them, their
motives must be pure before He will honour them. An unholy
ministry is the greatest curse of the Church ; I don't mean an
immoral or outwardly unrighteous ministry, but one unholy
in soul, polluted in motive. Talk of a stiff formal people, a
cold do-nothing people, a worldly, proud people ; where there
is a devoted, faithful, holy minister. I don't believe it ; there
never was such an anomaly lasted long. On the other hand,
call up a faithful, devoted, holy man who seeks only God's
glory, and be he talented or not, there you find a prosperous,
active, living Church. When I heard Baptist Noel I was
much disappointed as to talent, but not for a moment at a loss
for the secret of his universal popularity and extensive useful-
ness ; the Spirit of Jesus beamed through every feature of his
countenance, and vibrated in every tone of his voice. Any-
body who had read the life of Christ, converted or not, could
not but feel that the man who spake was a " follower, for his
speech betrayed him"; there stood an embodiment of the re-
ligion of Jesus Christ, and as it always has been and always
Vv'ill be, everybody felt its power. There was no oratory, no
eloquence, and but little originality ; so that considering my
disappointment, having heard so much about him and not
knowing the secret I should have wondered why I felt so much,
such a sense of solemnity and tenderness, as though God were
nearer than usual, if I had not understood something of the
meaning of that word " if a man love Me, I will love him, and
My Father and I will come to him, and we will make our
abode with him.''

Oh, my Love, this is it ; get these Heavenly Guests, and they
will do their own work, their very presence will constitute your
strength and ability to every good and holy work. God can
use such men as these without giving His glory to another,
people can see as it were through the man's own self, right to
the embodied Jesus in his heart ; and hence God gets the glory
of His own work, and His strength is made manifest in weak-
ness. Oh, I feel that if God should ask me — What shall I
do for thee ? I would answer without a moment's delay, " Give
me grace to cry in all life's conflicts and changes and tempta-
tions and in death's final struggle as my Saviour did, * Father,
glorify Thyself,'" though He knew that to do so would expose
Him to contempt, and shame, and suffering, such as had never

XIII] HIS GUARDIAN ANGEL i8i

been conceived, except by His own omniscient mind. Oh, I
shall never forget one season in my life when the Divine glory
eclipsed my spiritual vision and seemed to enrapture my soul
with its lustre. Oh how truly dignified did any employments
appear which could glorify God. I saw how rapidly the high-
est Archangel would dart from his starry throne down to this
mean earth to remove a stone out of the pathway of a little
child if such an act would glorify God, and oh I felt it the high-
est privilege of my being to be able to do it. I wish I could
make you feel just as I then felt; but Jesus can, and He will if
you ask Him. It was in secret communion with Him I realized
the glorious vision, and if you wait for it, and cry as Moses
did " show me Thy glory " He will come, and oh the comfort
and the light which such a vision leaves, truly it lasts many
days; even in the darkest moments of my subsequent experi-
ence I have traced its glimmer, and I believe Hell itself could
not obliterate the views then given me on this subject. But
oh how it tortures me to think it was given in vain, or nearly
so. In vain ! No, perhaps not, I still live, and bless God it
may yet prove " not in vain."

Pray for me, pray for me, and let us give ourselves to the
promotion of God's glory, and let us ever remember that God is
glorified in the full consecration of zvhat zve have, be it small or
great; He desires not the increase of five talents for the loan of
one, but a full, perfect consecration of that one to His own
honour, and whoever renders this. He pronounced as hearty
a Well done upon, as upon him who has received ten. I have
often erred here, I will try to remember in future that all I
have is all He wants ; you remember it too, dearest, and be not
anxious because you have not as much talent as this or that
man, but only to have what you have fully sanctified, and you
will realize the end of your existence as fully and glorify God
as much in your sphere as Gabriel does in his ; begin and pray
for grace to " glory in tribulation and in weakness," that " the
power and the excellency may be seen to be of God." Be
willing to endure the thorn of felt insufficiency, and even in-
feriority to others, if His grace be only sufficient to make you
useful in His vineyard. I believe it matters little whether we
are employed in gathering the sheaves, or gleaning the strag-
gling ears after the reaper ; it is the state of the soul which
fixes the value of the employment, not the employment itself ;
to glorify God is enough, in small or great things, according as
the measure of ability and opportunity is ours. Let us try to
fix our eye on this and aim at it alone.

But I have dwelt too long on this subject. I hope what I
have said will be made a blessing to you, if so tell me for I
have written it in great weakness, at intervals during the last
two or three days, sitting in my easy chair with a dreadful

i82 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.xih]

cough tearing me almost to pieces, but I find to write takes
off the restlessness and weariness always attendant on re-
covery from severe illness. Read it sonietiDics during the
ivcck, and may God own even this weak instrumentality dedi-
cated to His glory.

There are one or two more points in your last week's letters
but I must leave them, except what you say about Mr. and Mrs.
Shadford's kindness making it most difficult to leave. Cer-
tainly it must make it more painful to leave them as friends,
but it must not operate as a servile feeling of obligation to
interfere with your obedience to the dictates of judgment and
reason ; such an effect would make you unworthy of such
friendship ; for I cannot for a moment think that such an effect
was sought ; if so, that altogether alters the character of the
act, the motive being double ; but no, I believe it was an ex-
pression of pure friendship, and as such you must regard it
and not allow a sense of obligation to shackle you. But I need
not mention such a thing, I trust it is as far beneath you as me.

It is impossible to read this letter without admiration
and without a feeling of deep reverence for the young and
delicate woman who wrote it; but the chief impression it
makes is concerned rather with the man to whom it was
wTitten. One perceives that an influence of the sweetest,
purest, and most mystical character is at work, with all the
quiet confidence of spiritual strength, on a nature primitive,
headstrong, unruly, self-satisfied, and yet self-tortured by
doubts — a nature capable of greatness but susceptible also
of ruin and failure. One sees that the mothering of Wil-
liam Booth has begun: that the embrace of a milder and a
purer spirit is beginning to enfold itself about his life; that
he is conscious of an inferiority which she supplies, and she
in him of a superiority which she studies to enhance.

Something of the storm through which he himself was
passing at this period of his life may be seen in the letters
which compose the next chapter.

CHAPTER XIV

WILLIAM BOOTH TO CATHERINE MUMFORD

1853-1854

The reader has already been warned to expect in the letters
of William Booth a marked inferiority to the letters of
Catherine Mumford. It is probably the greatest tribute
to his character, particularly at the time with which we
are dealing, that he was loved so earnestly and so beauti-
fully by Catherine Mumford, that she deemed him worthy
of the letters which she addressed to him. One must be
careful to remember that he was a great man in the making,
and that even a great man may be an indifferent letter-
writer. Moreover, as Sainte-Beuve has warned us, things
said in conversation become congealed in the process of
writing, for paper cannot smile, paper is brutish; and his
letters are largely an effort to express himself conversation-
ally. One realizes, too, that in Catherine Mumford's hands
these letters of the young preacher were warm with the
man's life-blood, were instinct with his attractive tharacter,
were living with the magic of his presence; the paper was
not brutish, for his hand had pressed it ; the paper did
actually smile, for his eyes had rested upon it. To her these
troubled and often untidied letters were the utterance of
a very real soul — the greatest soul she had encountered —
and their feebleness was but the awkward gesture of a giant
who has put down his club to make a love-bow of a withy.
She wrote to him on one occasion :

Do I remember? Yes, I remember all that has bound us
together. . . . Your words, your looks, your actions, even the
most trivial and incidental, come up before me as fresh as life.

The main interest of these letters is the revelation they
afford, however crudely, of a man's struggle with his own
soul. William Booth was not born a saint, any more than
St. Augustine or St. Francis. He had faults ; he had weak-
ness ; he had the roots of sin. One discovers in these letters,

18;,

i84 THE LIFE OF GEXERAL BOOTH [chap.

even when the writer flies off to the rehgious phraseolog}^
of the day for a release from pitiless self-analysis, that he
was fighting a very great, a very terrible battle for his soul's
existence. They do not give one so easily and so movingly
the same sense of conflict which one finds in the letters and
very honest autobiography of Father Tyrrell; they are
entirely devoid of literary charm ; they do not deal with
the niceties of scholasticism, nor mount into the empyrean
of philosophy ; nevertheless to one who reads with sympathy,
remembering the distance which separated the one from the
other, there is something of the same spiritual struggle,
the same spiritual agony, in these rough letters of William
Booth as flames like a living fire in the writings of Tyrrell.

It will probably come as a revelation to those accus-
tomed to think of A\^illiam Booth as the white-haired, gentle,
and patriarchal head of the Salvation Army, that he had to
fight for his faith, that he was often cast down into an abyss
of despondency, that his heart cried out from the depths
of an exceeding bitterness for the sympathies and con-
solations and domestic kindness of humanity. And yet
reflection should surely convince us that so deep and bound-
less a love for mankind as that which characterised his
life's work could only have emerged from tempest and peril
of shipwreck, could only have come from agony of the heart
and through blindness of tears.

That which must chiefly interest the student of this
man's extraordinary career is the immense influence exerted
on his spiritual development by the woman he loved; so
great and high indeed in this influence, that one may even
doubt if his name had ever risen above the level of ordinary
preachers but for the constant pressure and the never-lifted
consecration of Catherine Mumford's beautiful spirit. For
the reader of these letters will perceive that not only was
William Booth lacking in many graces of the soul, but that he
was positively swayed at this time towards dangerous paths.

There was that in his surroundings, if not actually in
himself, which tended to make him the mere popular
preacher, the practised orator of unctuous phraseology, the
seeker of notoriety. He was young, he was romantic-look-
ing, he was poor. To be married to the woman he loved —

XIV] LOVE LETTERS 185

so that she might talk over his sermons with him, among
other things — was a great temptation. Further, his health
was extremely bad, physical effort was sometimes a torture
to him, the discomfort of lodgings weighed him down and
depressed him in body and soul. He longed for a regular
income, however small, for a settled home, however modest.
He thought that the unrest of his soul would cease, and that
religious quiet would possess his heart, if he could be de-
cently settled in life. But again and again, all through these
most difficult, most crucial, and most formative vears of
his life, he felt the call of the Spirit, and knew that there
was something ahead of him, something beyond a home
and domestic comfort, something beyond the affection of
friends and the popularity of the Methodist Church, to
which he must struggle on, for which he mu'st be prepared
to make a sacrifice of every human wish.

His conflict was not of the intellect, but of the very life.
He was not troubled about the schools, but about God and
his soul. He did not have to wrestle in spirit for a ground
on which he might stand firmly and utter a more or less com-
promising Credo; his conflict was to destroy in himself
everything that warred against the will of God. To him
there was nothing clearer than the injunction to sell all and
forsake all for Christ's sake ; but really to sell all, really
to forsake all, this was the cross which pressed him
to the ground. And sometimes when he cried to the
heavens for light on his path, the darkness deepened. His
hands knocked and beat upon the door, but it was not
opened. He asked and asked again, crying out from the
depths of his soul, but no answer was vouchsafed. Through
all that time the way was not clear before his feet, and the
ground on which he stood was as shifting sand.

Catherine Mumford also experienced these seasons of
darkness and silence; but she was living a solitary life, and
could patiently wait for the light to shine and the voice from
heaven to speak in her heart. William Booth, on the other
hand, was preaching to increasing congregations of people,
he was declaring the good news, he was offering salvation,
he was proclaiming the Kingdom. To him these periods of
darkness and silence were infinitely more hard to bear than

i86 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

they could possibly be to Catherine 3^Iumford; and for him
the temptation must have been a very terrible one, not to
strive any longer, not to expect the extraordinary thing to
happen, but to become the popular preacher of a country-
side, content with a traditional phraseology, and satisfied
with the compliments of the saved. Catherine ]\Iumford's
influence was the supreme human power that moulded his
life; but it is evident. I think, from these poor, simple, crude,
and sometimes irritating letters- that there was a huge
strength, rock-like and original, in the soul of William
Booth which could never have fitted into any niche of con-
venience nor have been shaped into any semblance of smug
complacency.

I need not burden the reader's mind with drearv details
of the sectarian conflict to which reference is constantly
made throughout the correspondence. It suffices to explain
that William Booth at this time was a ^linister of the
Methodist Reformers in Lincolnshire ; that the people to
whom he ministered were anxious to keep him, and were
ready to provide him with a house, a horse and gig, and a
salary suf^cient for marriage; that Catherine ^lumford dis-
approved of this step, and pressed her young lover to join
the New Connexion of Methodists — a body much better
organized and far more widely distributed than the Re-
formers ; and, finally, that while William Booth was drawn
very powerfully towards the New Connexion, which prom-
ised him a much wider sphere of useful service and a settled
career as an ordained minister, his affection for the people
in Lincolnshire and his desire for union with Catherine
Mumford tempted him sorely to remain among the Re-
formers.

William Booth to Catherine Mumford.

1853. (Undated.) i o'clock.

My dear darling Kate — What would I not give to see you
this afternoon, to sit by your side, and tell you my heart's
feelings ! Bless you ! \\t shall yet together, I trust in Provi-
dence, be spared many precious and happy hours.

Home. This word sounds sweetly to me now. I think I
shall rightly prize one when I get it ; at home with you ; to
have a home ! and it is your presence and your presence only

XIV] LOVE LETTERS 187

that can make it home to me. Well, then, to some extent you
reciprocate these feelings. You cannot entertain them to the
same extent that I do. You have a sweet home now, and its
quietude and solitude you enjoy and speak lovingly of. I have
no home. Mine is a lodging, a study, that is all. I come into
it tired and weary, and except there be some letters or news
about my yet having a home, it seems a dreary and melancholy
place. Well, we will yet make home brighter to each other and
I will try and kiss every tear away, and enhance the enjoyment
of every smile and make you as happy as I can.

I have more confidence in the people among whom I am
labouring. I believe they will do all they possibly can to make
us happy, and I hope to spend a year or two longer here. I
have given up hope of our people generally throughout the
country amalgamating, and our Circuit seems determined to
hang to the whole body, and so I don't take so desirable an
event into my calculations. We must leave our future in the
Hands of God. Do not you ? Only let us both do the best we
can for ourselves and for God and His Church. . . .

Red Lion Street, Spalding.

My own dear Kate — With feelings of very great pleasure
I snatch up my pen to write you a line — bless you, I would
that I could see you and that I could rest me for a season by
your side and tell you all my heart. I think much about you ;
your eye is ever looking down upon me and beaming into my
inmost soul. You are mine and you have my heart, and surely
all this ought to constitute rich enjoyment for us both; but I
have ever missed the present happiness in seeking and grasp-
ing the future.

I want you, your company, your comforting and consoling
converse. I want you to hear me, to criticise me, to urge me
on. I feel such a desperate sense of loneliness, so oppressive
to my spirit. I speak and preach and act, and it is passed
over; there is no one with whom I can talk over my per-
formance; to others I cannot mention it for fear of being
thought egotistic or seeking for praise, and for some reasons
others say little or nothing of it to me ; I hear only of it by
hints and innuendoes. I want you, too, to help you, to make
you happy, to bring you flowers, to show you my friends, for
you to enjoy the sunshine with me and the landscape, and the
Sabbath and sweet days ; bless you, I was never made to
enjoy anything alone. Oh that we could meet only for a time
— but we mnst zvait. I shall not write again until after Quar-
ter Day, which is on Monday. Thursday is Spalding Union
School-Feast. A great day here. I would that you were
going to be here. The children of all the dissenting schools
meet in the Baptist Chapel, where an address is delivered;

i88 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

they then walk to fields where large tents, etc., are erected ;
they have their plum-pudding and beef, and afterwards play,
etc. ; then comes the tea and public meeting ; the shops close
and the whole town and country for miles round turns out, and
thus give a public verdict in favour of Sabbath schools.

I spoke at St. Catherine's School-Feast, although the morn-
ing was wet and cloudy. The meeting was a triumphant one,
Mr. Shadford in the chair. 150 took tea, besides the chil-
dren, the people came through rain for miles. After tea, the
speaking. Mr. Ryecrof t spoke well ; he has a delightful way
of speaking. I followed him, and succeeded to my satisfaction.
Here is the outline of my speech. Introduced by the anecdote
of Galileo, who when tortured by the Inquisition for declar-
ing that the world goes round, denied it when on the rack, but
when set at liberty, stamped his foot and said, It does go round,
it does move. Well, ist, that the world moves, progress the
sign of the times, ist on its physical surface — Agriculture,
produce, flowers, animals, all improving Arts and Sciences.
Stage-coaches gone — now the age of engines, telegraphs, etc.
It moves, — morally, socially, and politically. Benevolent In-
stitutions are rapidly rising, although the Pope is still in Rome
and Napoleon 3rd in Paris and the slave-driver still cracks his
infernal whip, yet liberty is abroad, men are thinking. Hun-
garian mother is instilling into her babe's mind hatred to
Austria, etc., etc. Uncle Tom has been written and is being
read everywhere, and though they, the tyrants of the earth,
are shutting off the steam and fastening down the escape-valve
and sitting on it to keep it down, yet the boiler may, nay will,
burst and they will be caught up to meet one another in the
air ! You remember the last idea is stolen from Uncle Tom.
The world moves. Spiritually, men are marching, etc. The
Italians are calling for Bibles. A revolution fraught with the
most glorious prospects to Christianity is proceeding in China,
etc., etc.

2nd proposition. That all progress past, present, and future
— the result of education. Men have educated, cultivated the
land, the wheat, the flower, the animals — men have educated
brass, iron, steel, etc., until they have made engines to grind, to
carry, to draw, etc., etc. Mind has been educated, or we should
have been Druids at this day, etc., etc.

Spiritually likewise — Martyrs, etc. Are we to stay here ?
No, a thousand angel forms are beckoning us onwards. Our
work, the regeneration of our world, and therefore the world
must be educated. And to be educated the world must have
a teacher; who is it to be ?

3rd proposition. Is England, the Anglo-Saxon mind, the
schoolmaster for the world, for this adapted? I embrace all
who are English, America of course to some extent. She has

XIV] LOVE LETTERS 189

lessons of freedom to teach the slave-driver ; of the Kingship
of Christ and the supremacy of the Bible to teach Popes,
priests, and Cardinals ; of political liberty to teach the spoilers
of Hungary and Poland and Italy; lessons of the cross of
salvation by faith in Christ alone to teach Universal Man.

For this work England adapted by her power, her fame, and
her commercial relations, and to thoroughly qualify her she
must be thoroughly educated. Not merely mentally, not
merely morally, but religiously educated; and she cannot be
religiously educated but by the instrumentality of Sunday
Schools, etc. But I am filling up my letter with what will in-
terest you little ; however, it went well. That is, as I thought.

I do hope you vmderstood me to say in my last, bless you.
that should I find in you any irritability more than I have dis-
covered as yet, that I will bear with it and love you none the
less; bless you; do not say any more on such subjects, I am
more than ever satisfied with you — mentally, morally, and
spiritually. Oh it is that I am irritable and will want bearing
with, but, bless you, I will be all, all, all, all you wish. Bless
you, I love you dearly. My soul loves you. Cling to the
music. Music, oh it will move me to almost anything. It can
either calm or arouse me. You shall have all my temporal
endowments can procure to make you happy.

Cauldon Place, Hanley, Staffordshire.

My dearest and most precious Sweet — With very great
pleasure I sit down to write to you. I am expecting to hear
from you to-morrow, and I trust I shall hear very good news
as it respects your health and happiness. I think I am better
in health than I was when I came down here — I have com-
menced washing my chest well with cold water every morning
and then rubbing well, and I fancy I have benefited much by
this course. I hope to persevere with it. The friends mani-
fest much anxiety about my health, not too much, I do not
think. I have taken two raw eggs in my tea of a morning and
two in my tea at evening, and I think this, with milk and oat-
meal in an evening, has likewise been beneficial. As a set-off
against this I have worked very hard ; we had the chapel very
full last night, the largest congregation by far I have ever
preached to. We did not leave until 20 minutes to 12, took
down 50 names, making upwards of 200 during the 9 days. I
stayed in Longton ; I am now at Hanley resting for two days.
I commence on Sunday in this chapel, famous for its size and
its New Connexion reminiscences. . . .

You will be surprised when I tell you that my stay down
here is very likely to be prolonged until March, perhaps until
Conference. It is proposed to send a preacher in my place to
London — and a correspondence is being carried on with

I90 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

Messrs. Bates, Gilloii, Rabbits, and Cooke to that effect — I
do not know how it will terminate — I trust in all these things
we shall be guided by the Lord. Certainly the work at Long-
ton was very great and the influence very mighty, and if I
could have stayed we cannot tell where it would have stayed.
I do hope you are well, my dearest. Aly expenses to Longton
were about £i :5 :o; they gave me £5 :o:o. I have had to pur-
chase some things in consequence of my longer stay, etc. I
wish you were here; I have just spoken to Mr. Mills relative
to our marriage after next Conference and I do not anticipate
any difficulty; in fact, I shall very impatiently hear of any, if
I hear at all — but there will be none. I hope you are doing
what you can at the music, and likewise at your books. Bless
you, I often think about you and the future and our home and
our family, if God should spare us and trust us with any. I
hope we shall have grace to say in all things and in all cir-
cumstances. Thy will be done.

I hope to get two thorough good nights' rest and to be
strong and well by Sunday. Remember me kindly to mother
and father. Write me a long loving letter ; you have plenty of
time. Pray for me and I will pray that you may have in your
soul and around your path every blessing. And that in my
arms you may find your earthly heaven. I am anxious that it
should be so — nay, it shall be so. — With my heart's fondest
and truest love. . . .

PS. — I want to make a sermon on "The Flood"; if any-
thing strikes you on the subject, note it down. . . .

Red Lion Street, Spalding,
Saturday, 9 o'clock.
My own dear Kate — Yours has just come to hand.
Thank you for all your kind sweet counsellings, but I cannot
for a moment only, much more for 4 years, think of consenting
to such an arrangement. No, my present expectations are
these. I stay with this Circuit, and should it intend to amal-
gamate, I marry. Then it, viz. the Circuit, will recommend me
to the Conference as a travelling preacher and stipulate as one
of the conditions of the union, which amalgamation will be
highly advantageous to them, that I be received into full Con-
nexion at once. That will be the plan, I have no doubt, should
this Circuit agree to unite. If not, we must wait and then de-
cide on a course of action. I tell you honestly that I do not
intend anything of the kind as going 4 years' probationist with
them; I have been probationing long enough. If they had a
Training Institution it would be a different thing. I diff'er in
opinion with you respecting probation. I believe it to be an ex-
cellent rule. That is in the abstract. But you see it applies
and is intended to apply to young men of 18, 19, 20, and 21.

XIV] LOVE LETTERS 191

I am, to my shame I tell it, 2/^. However, I have told you
enough, I hope, to quiet every fear, every feeling of pain or
anxiety in your bosom. Be at peace with yourself and with
God's providential hand.

Of course, as a young man, if I go I must go as a young
man, and submit to the rules of young men. But even now
if I were married it does not follow as a necessary result that
I should be refused. So that we have everything to hope and
nothing to fear. . . .

I am very poorly. My face is swelled and hard. Some
ladies were joking me last night, sending me home for my wife
to make me some gruel, etc. If you were here to tell me it was
bad and would soon be better, etc., etc., it would not be half so
painful; it makes me peevish. Kate, I am very impatient.
I hear you say, '* Ah, William, I know that very well ! " /
love you. I zvant to see you, etc., etc.

My love to your Mother. I hope she is better. Keep your
spirits up; mine are good for the future. Praise God for
opening this door. Remember, although I have declined this
invitation of Mr. Cooke's, I have not shut the door. Four
years, only tJiink. I hope Heaven has much happiness, sweet,
united, shared happiness in store for us before four years have
fled away. Not but that if there were some College or great
advantages I would think of it; but there are not. . . .

Red Lion Street^ Spalding,
Thursday.

My own sweet Catherine — I have felt very sweetly to-
wards you, my dearest, ever since I received your last kind
letter. That letter did me real good, and yet I know not that
it was more kind than usual ; at all events it was more cheerful
and cheering, and it breathed a spirit of confidence that did
me good and, depend upon it, I have felt brighter and more
tenderly towards you ever since it came to hand. I am verj
anxious to hear from and about you.

We have had several very bad cases of cholera down here
near Holbeach, and I hear from the papers that it is worse
again in London, and I do hope that you are taking all the care
of yourself you can. I am pretty well in health. I am care-
ful with fruit, indeed I am not tempted to eat any but pears,
and although a lady sent me a basket the other night I never eat
above 3 or 4 at a time, and I should not think they would hurt
me. I hope you continue improving in your health ; send me
exact word. I am doing a little at study, but not so much as
I should like to do. I should almost like to get away by
myself for a time so as to be able to devote all my time to close
reading and thinking. I know not what to do about leaving.
I cannot tell you whether or not it would be wise. We shall

192 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

see. Give my very kind love to your dear Mother and also
remember me to Miss Smith, if she has returned. I hope she
will recover both her health and her spirits. I hope indeed
that she will be able to forget that fellow who deceived her so
painfully ; may the Lord forgive him, it is hard work for me
to do so. . . .

I have received yours this morning ; the above I wrote last
liight. 1 am pleased with your letter. But as undecided as
ever with regard to leaving here. If I do leave at Christmas I
should very much like to have the intervening six months to
myself and go to Cotton End or into the house with some
minister. I am gaining a little more love for study and feeling
daily my own deficiency. But I know not what to do. If I
thought the New Connexion was prosperous it would alter
the matter ; but I am afraid not. I know all that ^Ir. R. says,
and I have weighed it well, but I should think they have not
one sphere of usefulness anything like the one I occupy in its
adaptability to suit me. I tell you I know I am very super-
ficial; you knoiv I am — at least / knozv it; no one can make
me think otherwise, because it is the truth, and here I have
opportunities of getting matter that I should not among them,
coming not so often before one congregation, but that is not all.
However, I cannot argue the matter any further ; we must
leave it awhile. I am one hour all but decided to go, and
then when I think again I am decided the opposite. I am very
pleased you went to see Mr. R., I hope you will go again. The
next seven months make no difference to my ministerial status,
so that it does not matter whether I go or not till June. I am
sorry you took cold ; I do hope you take care of yourself. It
gives me great pain to hear of your continued delicate state of
health.

HOLBEACH,

Monday morning.

My own dear Catherine — I have expected a line from
you, but have not received one. I expected it because I think
you promised it in your last, not because I wish you to send
me more than one letter a week, but I do want to hear you say
you are thoroughly happy, that you are satisfied with the
pianoforte, and that you are well. . . .

I am thinking that the next ten years, if we are spared,
ought to be the brightest, best, freest from care and most
useful of our lives. Oh, shall they not be so? I am trying.
I know I am doing more than before, but I am not doing what
I ought to do. Oh that I had acquired habits years back that
would then have been easily formed and that now are difficult
to acquire.

I had a pretty good day yesterday — preached from ** Be
not deceived " at night. It seemed to go pretty well, I thought

XIV] LOVE LETTERS 193

— I have heard no opinion. / was much pleased with it.
Although I worked hard yesterday and retired at ii.o, much
tired, I rose this morning at 6.0 and have been studying and
intend continuing through the day. . . .

Praise God, the sun shines. My heart feels freer. M)/
conscience and my will are living in sweeter harmony. My
prospects are brighter. My confidence in you, in your good
heart, and in your large soul and in your thoughtfulness, is
very strong. My faith in my own affection for you is firmer
and more unswerving. Why should we not both sing and
rejoice and praise the Lord? . . .

I can plainly see, my dearest, that our influence over each
other will be immense. I tremble when I think how much
apparently during my last visit, I exercised over you. Oh,
my heart must be thoroughly Christ's. . . .

I have a speech to make for a Stone-laying and I must do it.
Mr. Jonathan Rowbotham lays the Stone, and I am expecting
to follow with a speech. I am sure I don't know what it is
yet to be. It will be one source of my great pleasure and
profit when we can talk over our feelings about truths and
subjects, and doubtless it will be to you also. Remember, you
promised to try and write something for the Magazine. I will
be contented when you have tried, whether you succeed or not.
/ do not fear your succeeding.

HOLBEACH,

Monday morning.

My own dear Kate — Somewhat tired I sit me down to
write you my Monday's epistle. I preached at Holbeach yes-
terday twice, and at Holbeach Hurn in the afternoon. Good
congregations all the day. In the afternoon I went with a
local preacher planned to be at the Hurn. He was unwell, so
I took compassion on him and preached for him. His brother
lent us his gig, and I drove him and his brother's daughter
there for the night.

At night I preached from '' The harvest is past and the sum-
mer is ended," etc. A hard time, for though I had some little
liberty in talking there was a hard feeling. In the prayer-
meeting, no visible good was done. I have heard that Mr.
Molesworth's governess, for whom I told you I felt concerned,
has got salvation. I hope it is true. . . .

I am still whirling about the country. To-night I go back to
Spalding. Tuesday to Pinchbeck. Wednesday to Suttleton.
Thursday a special sermon at Boston. May the Lord save
and bless the people ! Oh, my dear Kate, let us live to God.
I wish all this writing was at an end, and that you were here,
mine, in my arms. And yet I cannot help having fears and
doubts about the future. How I wish the Reformers would

194 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

amalgamate with the New Connexion or with the Association
and that all this agitation were ended.

But I know what I want. I know what I must have. But
I don't know how — at least it seems as though I don't know
how — to get it. I want more inward power and life in my
own soul. I fully believe if I had this I should prosper in my
work. I might do so much more by the fireside (of the people)
if I were living closer to God, but my best efforts and desires
— I fear my motives — are not so pure as they ought to be.
Oh, that God may save and bless me. . . .

But I am always running before to find doubts and fears;
mine has always been a restless and dissatisfied life, and I am
fearful that it will continue so until I get safe into heaven.

Believe me, Your dearest friend, and that nearest my heart
you dwell.

Red Lion Street, Spalding.

My dearest Kate — I did not write yesterday because full
of anxiety and care, and I am not much better to-day. I hope
you are well and happy in the love of Jesus, God's well-beloved
Son. Although cast down and low-spirited I must say that
God has been blessing me of late and watering my soul from on
high. I am determined to get more religion, to cleave to Christ,
and to conquer through Him all temptation. I had a glorious
triumph on Friday and it has been better with me ever since.

Mr. Poole, the revivalist, is with us, and I like him much.
He is rather dark and heavy, I should think, in his preaching;
but he arouses the people; he has aroused me, and that is just
what we want. In this respect I care not what people say
about " alarming preachers." God has blessed my intercourse
with him, hearing him tell about salvation has been a blessing
to my soul. I am living near to the Throne of Grace. Help
me to watch and pray. And let us seek His present, full, and
free salvation.

Mr. Poole is dissatisfied with things as they are and medi-
tates going to America and joining the Methodist Episcopal
Church, and I should almost like to go with him ; he gives a
deplorable account of the deadness, stiffness, and formality of
the New Connexion, although not exactly indisposed to join it
if he could be taken into full Connexion, having a wife and
five children. He is a very valuable man, just fitted to stir
up a slumbering church. However, I think of oft'ering my-
self to the New Connexion. Ought I to do it now or wait a
few months? If they are low and yet right, we ought to go
and try to raise them. I hope Poole zvill go. He is a blessed
man, and yet it is more his peculiar ability and fire than his
sanctified soul; here is a great difference between him and
Caughey. But he prayed magnificently and with mighty power
last night at the School Meeting.

XIV] LOVE LETTERS 195

Bless you, be happy. We must live to God. He will guide
us. I am afraid of doing wrong, and acting hastily. It puts
me past study and everything else.

I love you very much and I am sure very tenderly. Take
care of yourself ; if I leave at Christmas I shall come up and
see you. They tell me here I am going from a rising pros-
perous church to a sinking one ; it is not out yet ; I know what
the people will say when they hear; but I care not for that.
I must do right.

Oh that God would in mercy gain your father.

Spalding,
September, 1853.

My darling Catherine — Your very affectionate letter
with all its counselling and interrogatories has just come to
hand and I have read it over with very great care. I assure
you my heart dictates this with much affection for you and the
tenderest concern for your interests.

I am very sorry you do not like Mr. Rabbits' style of ser-
mon. I am afraid that you will often have to mourn in the
future for your dear Mr. Thomas.

I should like very much to see you. I do not know what
you would think of Mr. Poole. He is very extravagant, but
very powerful. His great theme is salvation by faith, present,
free, and full. I yearn to see good done. I rather imagine
that our ideas may not be alike upon revival matters. Many
precious souls have professed to find the Lord this week under
Mr. Poole's preaching. . . .

I am seeking purity of heart. Seek it with me. You beHeve
in it, that Jesus' Blood can cleanse and keep clean, and it is by
faith. Oh, God is striving with my soul. I do want to give
myself up to Him. Lord help me.

Mr. Smith is going to Cotton End. I am sorry. Lord save
him from deadness and formality. I wish you would get Fin-
ney's Lectures, the Lives of Bramwell, Stoner, and John Smith.
I do not now wonder whether I ought to have gone to Cotton
End. I have very little sympathy with the spirit of Congre-
gationalism. . . .

The great doubt I have and which has staggered me for
some time with regard to joining the New Connexion, is my
being so superficial, but I must work harder. Be happy ; 1
love you dearly. Praise God with me that He is saving me.
You have often prayed for it, now believe for yourself also
and God will purify your heart by faith. ...

My health continues good. My spirits are better, and if
I have a good week next week in my ministrations, I shall be
on the mountain top; but whether up there in the region of
rejoicing or not, a settled peace is my birthright. He bought it

196 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

for me. He has proposed it to me. offers it only on one
simple condition — believing faith. Lord, I do believe.

'Tis done. Thou dost this moment save.
Redemption through Thy Blood I have,
And spotless love and peace.

Whether we eat or drink, we will do it to the glory of God.

]\Iy dearest Kate — I am exceedingly full of business this
morning, just snatch a moment to add another word or two to
the scrap I wrote yesterday. I intend using some of the lead-
ing ideas you gave me in your last at a school-feast to-night,
that is if I can get the outline filled up. Bless you, I do hope
your health is better. You must get zcell. I do hope and
trust that Dr. Franks knows what he is doing. I am resting
pretty quietly about the future. Xot that I have any more
confidence in the future. No. But I have more confidence in
this Circuit and the hold I have got on its affections. And I
am hoping that it will amalgamate and take me, take us, along
with it. The weather is beautiful and the country charming.
I am comforting myself with the idea that it is the last sum-
mer we shall spend apart. I do trust that God in His good
pleasure will bring or allow this to be brought about.

Several sudden deaths have occurred lately ; they make me
feel solemn. You must this time excuse me scrawling so and I
will learn better. I love you. my dearest ; my heart is and has
been of late very full of tender aft'ection for you. Oh for
perfect unitedness ; I think if we are allowed by Heaven to
be united outwardly, we shall be united inwardly. Oh I am
sure I shall count it my highest enjoyment to see you happy. . . .

Red Lion Street, Spalding.
(Undated.)

My dearest Love — Yours is just to hand. I am thankful
you received the money safely. I am sorry, very sorry, to hear
of your continued ill health. Of course it is very painful, while
I feel tolerably well myself, while everyone around me makes
merry and looks well, that you continue prostrate. And yet
for some reason I do not feel your symptoms are anything like
serious, that is, I have no fear of your recovery. I will pray
that it may be speedy. Oh, that I may be enabled to say from
my heart, God's will be done.

Now to answer your letter. In the first place, I must tell
you that the sermon on Sunday morning did execution. No
sermon of mine has attracted such notice here. But unfor-
tunately the weather was most stormy, so that I had but half a
congregation. At night I preached from the *' Water of Life,"
John iv. 14. A precious time I had and felt the greatest liberty.

xivj LOVE LETTERS 197

Last night, fair night. I preached from '' Unto you which
beUeve He is precious." Many said I should have no people,
it being Fair time, but I had the place full and a sweet time.
It was precious to my own soul.

Yesterday I should have written but was so occupied. I
really had not the time.

Mr. Shadford disapproved of my having laid out so much
money on that piano. He says he wants to see me do well and
does not want to see me in poverty all the way through life,
and he thinks a comfortable position is only to be gained as he
has gained his, by strict economy. / haz'c my ozvn viezvs.
Your happiness, your well-being, and the getting all the com-
fort you can out of money, those are my mottoes at present.
How can I make the money go the furthest to promote your
blessedness and thereby my own — ours, ours? Give my love
to your dear mother and thank her for me for her kindness to

you.

Red Lion Street.

My own darling Katie — Oh how I wished yesterday
evening that I had wings to fly to you to hide my head in your
bosom and listen to your sweet comforting voice. I am sure I
scarce have ever yearned for your presence more than last
night. But I am always w^anting by night and by day. And
the time, I suppose, will come all zvell when I shall have my
desire and have you alzvays zvith me.

The District Meeting yesterday was a poor affair. Got
myself a little insulted; a large Meeting yesterday, it is true, at
night. Spoke with some considerable liberty and was well re-
ceived. Came home more than ever out of love with the Move-
ment generally, and more in love than ever with my own Cir-
cuit, and half resolved to write off directly and offer myself
to the New Connexion. But I must learn to wait. Mr. Staf-
ford, ]\lr. Hardy, Mr. Brown, and others from our Circuit
strongly pressed a motion in favour of amalgamation with
the New Connexion, but it was lost. I supported it of course
very warmly. I am thankful our people are so unanimous on
the'matter. It is a good sign for the future and augurs success
for my plans and schemes. There were men there, and there
are many Gazes and Hazledines and Burts and others whom
the New Connexion would do better without than with. But,
however, no more on that score. You will post your letter to
me on Thursday. You will not forget a few ideas for a
school-speech. I have one on Friday at Holbeach, a public
meeting at Suttleton on Monday. Hanks and his wife \yere
at Boston last night. I believe he is a nezc man; he has given
over smoking. He is very anxious about the cause. They
intend building a chapel directly. I wish them well.

And now, my better angel, I hope you are well and happy.

198 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

Bless you, 1 looked over a heap of music at the booksellers this
morning to try and find something to send you but could not
find anything I liked. I reciprocate all the sweet feelings you
gave expression to in your last, and I do most earnestly hope
to be able to enter into your feelings and to help in every sense
of the word to make you happy. Give my love to your dear
mother. Whatever you do, take care of your health. . . .

The alternation of high spirits and dejection in these
letters is characteristic of the writer's temperament, but it
may in great measure be explained by the alternation of
health and sickness. William Booth suffered throughout
his life from an extreme form of dyspepsia, so extreme,
indeed, that he was obliged at last to study every morsel
of food that entered his body. The seeds of this exhausting
and irritating complaint were sown in youth, when he
starved himself, worked like a slave, and devoted every
hour of his leisure to the excitements of street-preaching;
during the early years of his ministry as a Methodist
preacher the complaint manifested itself so unmistakably
that only zeal and courage of an unusual order could have
supported him in his work.

The following fragment of a letter is interesting and
surprising. In boyhood William Booth had loved fishing;
after conversion he had regarded that sport as a form of
wickedness ; but here he is, as a Methodist preacher, indulg-
ing in the more muscular and, as some people would say,
the much more cruel sport of shooting. Not only this, but
the Old Adam is so strong in him that he takes pride in
recounting his prowess to the woman he loves. Unhappily
no reply to this letter from Catherine Mumford is to be
found. One thinks that she smiled on reading it, and then
sat down to write a very solemn sermon to her y.outhful
lover.

HOLBEACH.

I received your kind note this morning. I have seen The
Times; there is nothing in it respecting either the amalgamation
or the letter. I am going on to St. Catherine's this afternoon.
My face is a little better. Go to the Concert by all means ; I
should be angry if you did not. The day is very fine but ex-
ceedingly hot. My head aches a little and I still continue, as
the effects of my last week's cold, stiff and weary.

I did last Monday (yesterday week) what I never did before

xnl LOVE LETTERS 199

— ventured to fire off a gun ! The first three or four shots
were failures ; afterwards I was declared to be quite a marks-
man. Yesterday again I went out for an hour or two's shoot-
ing. And they pronounced me a dead shot ! Now do not go
and scold me about it, and thus frighten my conscience until
I cannot enjoy it. I am pleased you liked my letter. I hope
it will do you good. You shall hear from me again.

PS. — Heaven bless you.

The letters which follow were written at the beginning of
1854, and show that William Booth has at last made up his
mind to leave Lincolnshire and return to London.

Red Lion Street,
New Yea/s Eve.
My dearest precious Catherine — Your very sweet letter

— almost the most cheering and blessed you have ever sent me

— came safe to hand this morning ; after a long walk, right
welcome it was, and be assured that it shall for once be
answered, though not to-night — it is 8 o'clock and I have
to be at Chapel by 10. But while writing other letters I must
just drop a line to you, and yours shall be responded to on
Monday all well. . . .

Be assured I am pleased much, very much, with your re-
vived and soul-cheering experience. May your path in this
matter be as that of the just, shining more and more unto the
perfect day. ^ly heart reciprocates all you say about our
future. Nay, I am thankful, if you will allow me to say so,
that we are not to be married yet, as I wish to make myself
more worthy and more adapted to you — and better fitted to
make you happy before the consummation takes place. I
cannot quite so confidently as you rejoice in my proposed new
step ; there is a dark cloud . . . but I have good hopes of its
dispersion. It is so many and so very kind friends I am leav-
ing — forsaking of my own choice, and a sphere which is so
adapted for me, in which God has so owned and blessed me,
and for one so different, so cold, so cramped, of which I am
assured on every hand, on authority which I cannot dispute,
that makes me sad and thoughtful, if not fearful, lest the step
should be wrong. You see, my dearest love, you sit thor-
oughly on the outside, you are not acquainted with the prac-
tised working of the thing — you study the theory^ — I have
long since been satisfied with the theoretical part of the new
Connexion, but the practical working of it is another matter;
and when a number of grey-headed men who tell me that they
are fearful for my own sake, that they say so because they
love me, that they fear I am stepping out of the order of Provi-
dence, I cannot but listen. . . .

200 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

But I did not intend to touch this subject — I must go and
risk everything — I just wanted to send you a waft of love and
pure and ardent affection, and to kiss this sheet and envelope
and send them to meet your lips on Alonday morning. . . .

1854.

Red Lion Street, Holbeach.

My dearest and most precious Kate — I write you a line
in great haste. I am at a distance from the post office and have
many doubts as to whether I shall be able to post this in time
before I go away this evening. I hope you received mine this
morning posted on Saturday evening. I accidentally spied the
ribbon at Mr. Handy's and thought it would make you a nice
pair of strings to your black velvet bonnet; it just suited my
taste and I thought you should see for once what my taste
was.

I received a note on Saturday from Mr. Rabbits, stating that
it was agreed that I should go and live with Mr. Cooke, ac-
cording to my request. I know you will be pleased w^ith this
arrangement; of course I shall, for bringing me within reach
of you, and we must have fixed rules, etc., etc. — I do hope the
Lord will bless my coming up to town.

We had a very good day at Holbeach on Sunday, 9 or 10
souls found the Lord at night — some very interesting cases.
Last night at Holbeach Hurn we had two come to seek the
Lord and had a very good meeting — and I hope we shall have
more to-night. To God be all the praise. I will bring that
extract from the Public Good with me when I come ; I think it
meets my views — I still have to contend with much argument
and many regrets ; all the people look upon me as one madly
leaving the path of Providence with my eyes wide open. Truly,
if my way is not plain and my ministry successful when I
reach my new sphere, there is bitter misery and very painful
regrets for me.

But we will hope for the best. I hope much. Be happy ;
I talk about you and think about you. The friends consider
you have a hand in the matter; I am very vexed and sorry
that they do ; it is my work, and I had rather they thought me
capable of doing it myself. Do not trouble yourself about the
money for the piano, I shall manage until I come up for money
and they will pay then — sell the table, if you can. However,
I would not trouble about that — never mind it, on second
thoughts. It is probable I shall be in London about the third
day of February, and being as I am coming so near you, and as
we shall have abundant opportunities for communication and
counsel, I had better name that time to Mr. Cooke, had I not?
Send me word. I hope you are happy and that your health
is rapidly improving. You must get better every day now and
that as quickly as possible. I do hope the step is right and it

XIV] LOVE LETTERS 201

will be owned of the Lord. Oh for a nearer assumption to

Christian character — I must thoroughly commence life anew.

Give my love to your dear mother. I sighed out your name

in Spalding pulpit just as the clock struck the hour of midnight

— and prayed for your happiness and prosperity during the
coming year. Write me a line directed home to reach there
on Friday. Bless you, I have strong faith that we shall yet be
very happy. Oh I know^ I love you, highly esteem and love
you. and I know you love me. Oh we will try and make each
other happy. . . .

Red Lion Street, Spalding,
Jan. 6, '54.
My dearest and most precious Kate — ^It does indeed
seem a long time since I had the pleasure of hearing from you.
I do not desire you to write oftener than once a week ; at the
same time your letters are always very welcome. I am sure I
long very much for your company, for your society, and your
help. I have felt very much the unpleasantness of being com-
pelled to wait so long before we could be united since we"
parted. But however the step is taken and it must be en-
dured with as good a grace as possible. You will be pleased
to hear that I have written to Mr. Cooke asking to come up to
London and to live and study with him until Conference, and
that I have received a letter this morning stating that he will
see Mr. Rabbits and the other friends and endeavour to make
arrangements for my doing so. It will be very pleasant and
we must make it profitable our being so near one another once
more. If it can be brought about! I am very anxious to
get away from here now as quickly as possible — some whom
I deemed my fastest friends are very displeased and vexed
with me, and my position becomes daily to my feelings more
painful. I hope it is for the best. I think it is. My mind
is much more composed about it than it w^as, and I hope, if I
come to London, to spend a very profitable six months.

New North Road, London.
(Undated. Probably one of the first letters after
joining the New Connexion.)
My dearest Catherine — (After references to meetings)

— And now I want to tell you :

1. That you must write to me oftener than once a week.
You have nothing to do and I am overwhelmed wath business
and care, and I cannot exist now on one letter per week.

2. I am well in health and have no fear or feeling about
cholera. When I say I am well, I mean I am very much better.
My appetite is good and my digestion is improved.

3. Why did you not send me Mr. Macland's address? I

202 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.xiv]

have found him an apartment. They are keeping it and cannot
find him.

It was fooHsh of your mother to send the letter and address
to Burnham. ...

I should like much to see you. I have wanted you this last
day or two much. I am for Bristol on Saturday and the fol-
lowing week. You will get down about the same time. In
my Monday's note I said that the " Bridal Waltz " was 4s.
Shall I buy it? I have no notion of giving so much for the
Devil's music, but your will shall be done.

I had a good night on Sunday, and am expecting great
things at Bristol. The friends are very kind and Mr. Bates
is in excellent spirits about things and quite in favour now
of my views. In fact, we have some very encouraging facts
before us.

Believe me, my dearest, to be — Your affectionate, constant,
and tender William.

CHAPTER XV

THE EVANGELIST TROUBLED ABOUT MANY THINGS

1854-1855

A STRANGE step had been taken. William Booth, the fiery
preacher of revivalism in Lincolnshire, became all at once a
humble student in Regent's Park, surrendering himself to
the domination of a Rev. Dr. William Cooke, theologian.
From excited prayer-meetings, from furious preachings, and
from the popularity and hero-worship of tea-parties, this
lion of Lincolnshire suddenly abased himself to the school-
room, and opened Greek and Latin grammars with a valor-
ous effort to acquire the habitual meekness of a divinity
scholar.

But till the last moment he hesitated, and almost at the
last moment he threw himself off in a clean contrary direc-
tion. In January, 1854, he wTote to Catherine Mumford
from Holbeach :

The plot thickens, and I hesitate not to tell you that I fear,
and fear much, that I am going wrong. (He speaks of a fresh
offer made to him by the Reformers, and then proceeds.) My
present intention is to tear myself away from all and every-
thing, and persevere in the path I have chosen. They reckon
it down here the maddest, w^ildest, most premature and hasty
step that ever they knew a saved man to take.

To this and another similar letter Catherine Mumford
replied in wise and quieting fashion :

I am very sorry to find that you are still perplexed and
harassed about the change. I did think that there were con-
ditions weighty enough to satisfy your own mind as to the
propriety of the step, and if not I begged you not to act. Even
now it is not too late. Stay at Spalding, and risk all. Pray
be satisfied in your own mind. Rather lose anything than make
yourself miserable. You reasoned and suffered just so about
leaving the Conference, and yet you see it was right now. I
never suffered an hour about it, after I once decided, except in

203

204 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

the breaking of some tender associations. Nor do I ever ex-
pect to suffer. I reasoned the thing out and came to a conclu-
sion, and all the Conference battering I met never caused me a
ten minutes' qualm.

You mistake me if you think I do not estimate the trial it
must be to you, and the influences, and the circumstances and
persons around you. But remember, dearest, they do not alter
realities, and the Reform movement is no home or sphere for
you ; whereas the principles of the Connexion you love in your
very soul. I believe you will be satisfied, when once from
under the influence of your Spalding friends.

Anyway, don't let the controversy hurt your soul. Live
near to God by prayer.

That she herself was in no fixed and unshadowed state
of peace at this time may be seen from the following letter,
which she wrote to him, so far as one can judge, a week or
two before his return to London :

Bless you, my precious one, how I long to see you to-night.
I have not been at all well since Friday evening, and the
weather being very wet and fogg}^ to-day I have not been out.
However I have not spent an unprofitable or useless day. I
lay in bed till nearly 12 o'clock reading the blessed Bible, and
some portions of the Magazine, and praying for thee, with
special reference to the subject of thy last letter. No doubt,
the exercises you mention were the result of temptation. I
only wonder Satan does not harass you more in this way,
seeing what you are doing with his Kingdom. When I used
to try and serve God most faithfully and do most I used to
suft'er untold misery through what I believe now was pure
temptation. Oh the agonies I sometimes endured — since I
have been more indifferent Satan has let me alone {compar-
atively), but I intend to provoke him again to open warfare if
God spares me, yea, I have begun. I trust the Lord has de-
livered thee, and that this has been a day of peace and success.
Only mind that the people understand what religion is, and thou
need not fear their being excited — there is the most glorious
precedent for such results. I believe in revivalism with all my
soul. I believe that it is God's idea of the success of the gos-
pel. Of course you know what / mean by revivalism, the
genuine work of the Spirit, and I believe these are such; go on,
do all thy duty and leave results with God.

I do wish I could see you to-night ; I feel tired and prostrate
and my spirit very, very tender ; thy sympathizing voice would
be sweet indeed, and though tired I could welcome thee home
with a smile, and lay my hand on thy head and sympathize
with thee in thy weariness. Well, it will soon be if God per-

XV] MANY TROUBLES 205

mits, and we shall indeed be one, one in love. Oh blessed lot
and hallowed even as the joy of angels where godliness and
love unite two hearts in one. Good-night dearest, I sleep with
thy loving letter in my bosom and sometimes dream about thee.
God bless thee. I often think about that night thou wast so
late home from the meeting at Mr. Rabbits ; thy tenderness
of manner to me when thou first came in has never passed
away, and my mind seems to go back to it as to a green spot
in our intercourse.

The meeting of the long-separated lovers in February,
1854, is not described, but from an autobiographical frag-
ment, written manv vears afterwards bv Catherine Mum-
ford, one gathers that happiness co-existed with fresh dif-
ficulties in this reunion w^hich was not destined to be of long
duration :

The return of W. to London was to me of course a cause of
extreme gratification. We were once more within reach of
each other. Personal communion is so much more satisfactory
for the interchange of thought and counsel than correspond-
ence. We met at regular intervals.

One of the first things I insisted upon, after our engage-
ment was that stated times should be fixed for our meetings.
It was always a point of conscience with me, not in any way
to allow any service rendered me to hinder either W. or any
one else in the discharge of any higher duty.

We could now compare notes also as to our mutual studies
and tasks — the varied plans that we formed for future useful-
ness. It was no little gratification to me also to know that W.
was once more devoting his time to mental development. I
had always estimated the College failure as a calamity. Per-
haps I over-estimated those literary and intellectual oppor-
tunities which college supplied — I think I did, in view of what
I have learnt since then. Still those were my notions at that
time, and I regarded this present arrangement by which W.
was once more set down to a regular course of study as a sort
of modified compensation. Taking all things into considera-
tion, therefore, I was wonderfully well satisfied with the
present position of affairs, and was very grateful to God for
having so far as I could see led us into the path which had
every likelihood of terminating in a sphere of as great useful-
ness and happiness as I could have ever deemed possible.

Still W. was not satisfied. To tell the truth, he was really
unhappy, almost as unsettled as ever. The first part of his
Spalding life was in some senses the happiest portion of his
early career. He was contented, and having known nothing

2o6 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

higher, his present position, with its immediate prospects, would
have been as Paradise to him compared even with that, but he
had tasted of something which in his estimation presented a
superior opportunity of usefulness than either this or that.
To be fully understood, I must go back a little.

Towards the latter part of his stay in Spalding, he had fallen
into a condition of great mental and spiritual depression. The
Devil buffeted him sorely. He was a prey to constant tempta-
tions, temptations that made his life more or less a misery.

Then the direct results in the shape of conversions that fol-
lowed his ministry were very small in comparison with what
he felt was his privilege to see. He had come in the past to be
more or less content with this state of things, but varied cir-
cumstances and influences woke him up out of his slumber,
and he upbraided himself continually that his work was not
more productive.

About this time a very useful preacher ^ visited the Circuit.
W. had heard many stories of the results that followed this
man's ministrations. He was by repute a plain, simple
preacher, but his word was attended by a power that was very
remarkable, sinners by scores being brought to God in con-
nection with it.

The visit of this preacher was looked forward to by ^^^ with
considerable interest, he reckoning that he might be able to
learn something from him, and resolved to watch him ac-
cordingly.

The service arranged for came, and the Preacher, and W.
was there to learn what he could from the example. And he
did learn ; and I have often heard him say that he derived a
lesson that made a mark upon his own after life. In this man
of God three things were made strikingly apparent in this one
service, and they were —

1st. Directness of aim. Every word and movement indicat-
ing that he was determined to bring that audience, young and
old, into harmony with God, and this was to be done that very
night before he parted with them if it was possible.

2nd. Simplicity of method, the simplest words, the plainest
illustrations, the most homely and striking facts being used
throughout the discourse.

3rd. The most direct dependence upon God for the result.

W. went home that night a wiser man and in his chamber
gave himself up afresh, promising God never to be satisfied in
any sermon he preached to sinners without seeing some souls
at least yield themselves up to the service of God.

That William Booth did not make a good theological
^ The Rev. Richard Poole.

XV] MANY TROUBLES

207

student goes without saying. Into the speculations of
philosophy he never entered, and for the laborious study
of theology it is quite certain that he could never have had
a fruitful inclination. *' He might often have been found,"
says Commissioner Booth-Tucker, " on his face in an agony
of prayer when he ought to have been mastering Greek
verbs." Yet he was conscious in himself of a need for
knowledge, and agonized more often than was good for
his health over intellectual deficiencies.

Monday — Visited the British Museum. Walked up and
down there praying that God would enable me to acquire
knowledge to increase my power of usefulness.

The call to active work interrupted his studies : the
thought that men and women were perishing of iniquity
while he turned the pages of text-books was like a madness
in his brain ; he spent more hours than was wise for a student
in preaching religion to the people of London. On the very
day of his arrival he preached in Brunswick Street Chapel,
" when fifteen souls sought salvation." A month after-
wards he was conducting services in Wapping, probably
his first acquaintance with East London. He felt, he says
in his diary, " much sympathy for the poor, neglected
inhabitants of Wapping and its neighbourhood, as I walked
dowm the filthy streets and beheld the wickedness and
idleness of its people." One conjectures that those poor,
neglected inhabitants of Wrapping made a more poignant
appeal to his soul than the dignity of a theological degree.

In spite of these continued preachings, however, the
studies of William Booth progressed satisfactorily. He
made a very marked impression on his tutor, whose daughter
was converted at a public service conducted by the young
student. Whether it was his advance in theological science,
or his striking power as a preacher that impressed the tutor,
certain it is that Dr. Cooke decided to propose him at the
very next Conference as Superintendent of a circuit in
London. This amazing proposition staggered William
Booth, and he uttered a heartfelt and most earnest nolo
episcopari! He felt himself unfitted for the work of super-
intending other ministers; he considered himself, and one

2o8 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

thinks rightly, far too young for such deHcate work ; further,
his indinations led him towards more direct and more
active fields.

A compromise was accepted. By William Booth's desire
another and an older man was to be proposed as Super-
intendent, and he himself was to act as that other man's
assistant. This appointment w'as ratified by the Con-
ference, which also granted the young minister an unusual
privilege in permitting him to marry at the end of twelve
months. Ministers of the New Connexion, it must be
explained, worked " on probation " for four years, and as
a rule no probationer was allowed to marry till the expira-
tion of this testing period. In the case of William Booth,
so sure was the Conference of his ability, that this unusual
privilege was granted in a welcome that was described as
*' hearty and unanimous."

In making this announcement to Catherine Mum ford,
W^illiam Booth wrote that '' for some unaccountable
reason " he felt no gratitude, adding that the news did not
elate him. Catherine Mumford, on the other hand, was
full of enthusiasm.

Your letter this morning filled my heart with gratitude and
my mouth with praise. I am thankful beyond measure for the
favourable reception and kind consideration you have met with
from the Conference, and I can only account for your ingrati-
tude on the ground you once gave me, namely, that blessings
in possession seem to lose half their value. This is an unfor-
tunate circumstance, but I think in this matter you ought to
be grateful, when you look at the past and contemplate the
future. However, I am. This comes to me as the answer of
too many prayers, the result of too much self-sacrifice, the end
of too much anxiety, and the crowning of too many hopes, not
to be appreciated ; and my soul does praise God. You may
think me enthusiastic. lUit your position is now fixed as
a minister of Christ, and your only concern will be to
labour for God and souls.

I saw that in all probability you might have to toil the
best part of your life and then, after all, have to turn to
business for your support. But now, for life you are to
be a teacher of Christ's glorious gospel, and I am sure the
uppermost desire of your soul is that you may be a holy
and successful one. j\Iay God afresh baptize you with
His love, and make you indeed a minister of the Spirit !

XV] MANY TROUBLES

209

Happiness came to William Booth in the almost im-
mediate call to fresh efforts at reviving religious life. He
worked industriously in London as assistant pastor with the
Rev. P. T. Gilton, but it was only when he was free to lead
special services that the whole force of his personality was
behind the work. He described Mr. Gilton as '' stiff, hard,
and cold; making up, in part, for the want of heart and
thought in his public performances by what sounded like
a sanctimonious wail." To William Booth zvant of heart
was the great infidelity, but he held nothing in more
abhorrence than a hollow sanctimoniousness. To such a
man, therefore, it must have been purgatory to work with
Mr. Gilton, and like a holiday to escape from him into the
•crusading battles of a fighting religion.

One of the calls came from Lincolnshire, and away he
raced to that familiar county with all the enthusiasm of
his nature to fan the flames of this hopeful fire, and grateful
to be unyoked from the measured paces of the cold Super-
intendent. He wrote to Catherine Mumford with fresh
ardour and new conviction of his manifold successes:

My reception has been exceedingly pleasing. Even the
children laugh and dance and sing at my coming, and eyes
sparkle and tongues falter in uttering my welcome. Yes-
terday I had heavy work. Chapel crowded. Enthusiasm
ran very high. Feeling overpowering, and yet not the crash
we expected. My prospects for usefulness seem unbounded.
But God knows best, and where He wants me, there He can
send me. The people love me to distraction, and are ready to
tear me to pieces to have me at their homes. A large party
was invited to meet me.

And again :

Yesterday I preached to crowded congregations, and we had
a crushing prayer meeting. Some splendid cases. I am more
than ever attached to the people. They are thorough-going
folks. Jtist my sort. I love them dearly, and shall stand by
them and help them when I can.

I have just taken hold of that sketch you sent me on " Be
not deceived," and am about to make a full sermon upon it.
I like it much. It is admirable. I want you to write some
short articles for our magazine. Begin one and gtt it done by

210 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

the time I come up. It will do you a world of good. I am sure
you can do it. I will look them over and send them to the
editor.

I want a sermon on the Flood, one on Jonah, and one on
the Judgment. Send me some bare thoughts ; some clear
startling outlines. Nothing moves the people like the terrific.
They must have hell-fire flashed before their faces, or they
will not move. Last night I preached a sermon on Christ weep-
ing over sinners, and only one came forward, although several
confessed to much holy feeling and influence. When I
preached about the harvest and the wicked being turned away,
numbers came. We must have that kind of truth which will
move sinners.

I have written by this post to Dr. Cooke. I tell him that
I am in love zvith no half measures, and I am determined to
seek success. I am doing better in my soul. Am resolved to
live nearer God, and put confidence in Him. Let us live for
Heaven !

To these triumphant letters Catherine Mumford replied
with a like enthusiasm :

Bless you ! Bless you ! Your note has, like joy's seraphic
fingers, touched the deepest chords in my heart, and what I
write is but like the trembling echoes of a distant harp. If
you were here, I would pour out the full strain into your bosom
and press you to my heart. God is too good ! I feel happier
than I have done for months. You will think me extravagant.
Well, bless God. He made me so. Yes, we shall, I believe it,
be very happy.

Do I remember? Yes, I remember all that has bound us
together. All the bright and happy as well as the clouded
and sorrowful of our fellowship. Nothing relating to you, can
time or place erase from my memory. Your words, your looks,
your actions, even the most trivial and incidental, come up
before me as fresh as life. If I meet a child called William,
I am more interested in him than in any other. Bless you !
Keep your spirits up and hope much for the future. God lives
and loves us, and we shall be one in Him, loving each other as
Christ has loved us.

Thus by communion our delight shall grow !

Thus streams of mingled bliss swell higher as they flow !

Thus angels mix their flames and more divinely glow !

The success of William Booth as a preacher was now
so definitely established that the Church to which he had
allied himself could not with decency forbid his acceptance

XV] MANY TROUBLES 211

of the invitations which began to pour in from many parts
of the country. There were those among the authorities
who disHked the method of revivaHsm; a conservative and
orthodox spirit existed in the New Connexion which was
distinctly antagonistic to the furious crusades of their
young recruit; nevertheless, so importunate were the calls,
so manifest the triumph of the revivalist, and so cold and
dead and formal was the general life of the Church, that
active opposition held its hand, and even criticism bated
its breath.

After the visit to Lincolnshire William Booth returned
to London, but was soon called to a series of services in
Bristol. From Bristol he went to Guernsey, where his
efforts seem to have reached a remarkable degree of success.
"Last night," he writes from there in October, 1854, ''I
preached my first sermon. The congregation was middling;
very respectable, stiff, and quiet. I let off a few heavy
guns at the lazy formality so prevalent, and with some
effect. They opened their eyes at some of the things I
said." Three days later he says : " My preaching is highly
spoken of. The Lord is working. I trust that to-morrow
we shall have a crash — a glorious breakdown." Still later :
'' To-night many went away unable to get into the chapel.
The aisles were crowded, and up to eleven o'clock it was
almost an impossibility to get them up to the communion-
rail, owing to the crush."

When he departed from Guernsey numbers of people
came down to the pier to wave their adieux to him.

That he was modest and diffident in spite of his popu-
larity as a preacher is clear from his refusal to undertake
a visit to the Potteries. The invitation came from the
President of the Connexion, who was quartered at Hanley,
and whose chapel was said to be '* the largest dissenting
place of worship in the world." Despite his signal success
in Guernsey, William Booth declined this call to Stafford-
shire. He argued that " he was too young, and that he
had but recently entered the denomination, that his circuit
would suffer by his prolonged absence, and that these
irregular services would hinder him in preparing himself
for the ordinary pastoral duties of the future." In spite

212 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

of the cogency of these arguments, and their sincerity, he
was finally prevailed upon by the urgent pressure of the
President and many leading men in London to undertake
this fresh labour — a step destined to affect his whole after
career.

In the letters which follow the reader will obtain not
only a very faithful account of this revival in the Midlands,
but a most remarkable insight into the character of the
revivalist. The change in him since his going to Spalding
is obvious in every letter, and although he still expresses
himself roughly, often without grace of any kind, one is
aware of a deeper sincerity, a quieter judgment, and a more
exacting conscience. He is so honest a man that in the
midst of a triumphant service of weeping penitents he
questions these fervent methods with a self-detachment
that is almost intolerable, and writes to Catherine Mumford
telling her so. At one moment he is swept away by a
feeling of passionate anxiety to reach and save perishing
humanity, at the next he is cast down in his own soul, and
cries out that he is the very prodigal of Christ. To his
betrothed he shows himself with amazing candour in every
word that surges through his mind; he never poses before
her; he never pretends; he never acts; whatever his
state of soul — there it is for her to see — the man of God
seeking for God, the preacher of righteousness himself
thirsting for righteousness, the popular and pious young
minister imploring the woman he loves to pray for him and
help him to dedicate himself anew to the service of Christ.
And with all these cries of a soul not yet set upon its
true course, there is a simple, a childlike, and sometimes a
most quaint humanity in these letters which make them a
veritable autobiography. He discovers that it is his birth-
day only by writing the date to a letter; clerical collars
annoy him; he asks his fiancee to order renewals for his
wardrobe; he tells her that cotton buttons get spoilt by
washerwomen; he describes how a cabman was not content
with half-a-crown, but blustered for three shillings; he
narrates his experiences with " globules " and the cold-
water cure ; he offers to l)uy his fiancee a silk dress with
flounces, and refuses to buv the silk unless she has the

>^v] MANY TROUBLES 213

flounces ; he tells how his linen is wearing out ; he describes
the fine houses and the fine people with whom he stays;
he confesses that he has only fifteen shillings in the world;
he tells how he wanted to knock down a young gentleman
of seventeen who was rude to his mother. All these con-
fessions make the man more real and human to the reader ;
his little controversies with Catherine Mumford incline us
to think that on such occasions at least his common sense
was wiser than her intellectual sharpness ; his gentleness
with her under repeated admonishment — particularly when
one remembers that he was a dyspeptic — endears him to the
reader as a large-hearted and tolerant man. But most of
all these letters are interesting, deeply and searchingly
interesting, as the revelation of a man's struggle for spiritual
perfection. They are above everything else the letters of
a perfectly moral and a perfectly honest follower of the
ideal Christ, who feels in himself the lack of some complet-
ing harmony, and who cannot find rest for his soul until his
whole spirit is merged and lost in the Divine approval.

Bridge Street,, Longton,
Staffordshire Potteries.

My dearest Katie — Here I am safe lodged amid as many
comforts as I can well desire. I had rather a dreary and
tedious journey, and when I arrived at Stoke the last train had
gone to Longton, so I had 3 miles' walk through the wind and
I have not yet got my bag and things from the Stoke station
where I left them. I am staying at the Robinsons', he is Mr.
Proctor's brother. Mr. Boycot the super, was awaiting my
arrival. I anticipate much real assistance, pleasure, and profit
from his co-operation. He appears a very nice man. I
thought much about you in the rail — I hope you are well and
very happy. I do trust that a future is before us, just such a
one as you desire; I am anxious that it should be so. Bless
you, my affection for you, I trust, has a good influence on my
heart, I think it helps to make me a purer and a better man;
I thought so in the carriage yesterday.

I have once more started afresh for the Kingdom of God.
I am desirous of making a good impression here and I feel
that much may be done out of the pulpit, and I am determined
that it shall. I am pretty well in health, and hope to continue
so. ... I commence work to-night; a good deal of expectation
is abroad, large posting bills are all over the town and neigh-
bourhood. I trust much good will be done ; I know you will

214 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH Ichap.

pray for nie ; I shall be very anxious till to-night. Indeed I
have had a very restless night and am very nervous this
morning.

I do trust that you will, my dearest, be very happy ; take
great care of your health this damp weather, and do not on
any account be venturesome ; always wrap up well when you
go out — I will comply with these counsels myself. It is a
desolate morning and the most desolate-looking place I think
I ever saw, but all will be well and the place will be lovely in
my eyes if sinners are converted and Jesus' grace is made
manifest.

Now, my own Kate, do give up your heart entirely to the
Lord and let us seek to make our intercourse a means of mu-
tual religious benefit when our love is sanctified and hallowed.

Do not write a long letter to Miss Mackleed ; you have not
time. Do not write long letters to any one but me ; it is not
well. It rains very fast and seems to bid fair for a thorough
wet day; if so it will injure our congregation much to-night.
You may expect a long letter from me with the first news I
have to send. Direct to me at J. L. Robinson, Esq., Solicitor,
Longton, Staffordshire Potteries. I cannot write, do as I wall.
So I will conclude, remaining your dear and affectionate

William.

Longton, Jany. ^th, 1855.

My dearest and most precious Kate — I expected a line
from you this morning and felt somewhat disappointed at its
non-arrival, but I anticipate this pleasure to-morrow. I hope
you are very well and very, very happy. Bless you, I am more
so than for some time of late for one or two reasons, first our
union is more perfect — our feelings more reciprocal and
hearty, and my love for you more calm and tender. My
thoughts stray to you much when alone, and after times of
excitement and effort I fall back upon you in thought and im-
agination as I shall do in reality in the future, for repose and
peace and happiness.

This is the most dreary and unsightty place I ever was in ;
the weather being gloomy and rainy does not at all add to
its pleasing effect. The work of God at present is heavy, very
heavy. I did not preach with pleasure to myself nor with
much influence last evening, as I thought ; the congregations
are very good, the chapel is very large, we have had 8 peni-
tents, none very important, altho' some I trust satisfactory
cases. We must pray on — our dependence is upon God.

I forgot to say that a second source of joy to me was that
I feel that I have begun to live afresh. You will rejoice my
dearest in this and you will join me in the like consecration.

XV] MANY TROUBLES 215

Oh, how much we owe to Him ! — shall we not render up the
entire service of heart and life?

If anything strikes you in the course of your reading or
meditation likely to be useful to me put it down on paper kept
on purpose and then tell me of it when we meet.

LoNGTON, Monday, Jany. Sth.

My dearest and precious Love — I have been out until
just now, 4 o'clock, with the preachers — I must find out some
plan to avoid going out except for service, tho' it be at the
risk of giving offence. I refuse many invitations — I am de-
sirous of standing well with the preachers and have therefore
been to see them. I snatch a moment for you, and will send
you a long letter at my first opportunity. Yesterday was a
grand day — ^t night I suppose 50 or 60 penitents. Large con-
gregations and deep interest. Mr. Ridgeway came over in the
afternoon to see me. He is a fine man ; quite the gentleman
and Christian. I am to stay with him and to be according to
his promise " as happy as a prince." They are making great
preparations at the Hanley Chapel and expecting great things.
I trust a good work has begun; but will send you more par-
ticulars in my next.

I trust my dearest that your cold is much better, I am very
sorry for you. I often think about you, and think about you
as you wish. Pray for me — I do for you. Oh to live better,
more to the purpose !

FS. — This note is only an excuse, you shall have if possible
a letter to-morrow. Love to your dear mother. Take plenty
of Cayenne for your throat.

LoNGTON, Jany. 10, 1855.

My dearest Love — Your very kind and affectionate letter
came to hand this morning — I should have written yesterday
had I had time. I am glad your throat is better altho' I have
more faith in the Cayenne than in the globules. I think you
should have persevered with the former, but as you will; only
do what you can to prevent as well as to cure. I think my
health continues as good as when I left London — I am taking
all possible care of myself. The friends are very kind and
anxious to promote my well-being in every way they can. I
hope you are very happy; bless you; I think much about
you and should much like your presence and society here. I
care less perhaps than ever about other company and prefer
quietness and solitude, or yourself, to visiting or talking to
others. I am determined to carry this idea out in practice if
possible in the future.

The revival is progressing with mighty power and influence.

2i6 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

Several very interesting cases have transpired — and some im-
portant persons have been converted. We are working more
by rule and with more order than I have ever attempted before.
We had two persons in the vestry, one a grey-headed old mem-
ber and the other a young man converted on Sunday, a clerk of
Mr. Robinson's ; these take the names of the persons who find
salvation in a book ruled on purpose in columns headed,
*' Name " " Address." Whether a member before, if so of
what class or church ? Whether they will meet in society with
us, if so in what class? Whether they prefer any other church,
if so which? Whether married or single, and other remarks.
Then one or two persons are stationed around the communion
rail who take the persons into the vestry, and thus you see we
are doing what we can and as well as we can. We have taken
down about 140 names and a great number of persons are under
deep conviction. The congregation last night was very large
and we are expecting the chapel crowded to-night. I am very
sorry that many of the more respectable of the seat-holders
keep aloof — it is an important matter when the head of a
family not only refuses to come but exerts his influence to keep
others away likewise. It is so with many, I fear, here. Mr.
Boycot came to see me last night and told me of one family
in the chapel all of whom, father, mother, sons, and daugh-
ters (young men and young women) were under deep convic-
tion. But they went away resisting, at least undecided, I
hope to come back again and find mercy. . . .

Cauldon Hall, Staffordshire,
Jan. i^th, 1855.

My dearest and most precious Catherine — I have just
received something like certain information that my destination
is to be the Staffordshire district for the next month at least,
very probably up to Conference. I hasten to apprise you of
this. Letters have been received from Messrs. Bates and
Rabbits consenting to this arrangement. Mr. Downs, a very
popular man among the Reformers, has recently joined our
Ministry, and he is coming to supply for me this month. He
has been described to me as being very efficient and therefore
I trust my London friends will be satisfied; there can be no
question but my Superintendent will be content if not rejoiced.

Now I shall want you, dearest, in the course of next week
to go over to Mr. Jones, look over the room and put away all
my papers. I will send you my key and you must send me the
manuscripts I mention. . . .

Monday morning. — Yours came to hand and was read with
great pleasure ; I am pleased you are better and that you are
getting on comfortably. Do not, my own dear Love, in any
way pine about my absence ; I am grieved that you should.

XV] MANY TROUBLES 217

I think that, all things considered, it will be as well if I am
away a little longer. And we shall soon meet, all well, on
different terms.

Yesterday I took the pulpit in this immense chapel — the
congregation this morning was very good, probably 1,500
people ; at night the place was full, over 2,500 were present.
It was an imposing sight when all rose up to sing. What a
responsibility to have to preach to them. The Lord helped me
to say a few words. In preaching both morning and evening
I was much blessed. At night we took the names of 24 per-
sons who professed to find peace ; it was not so great a number
as I had hoped for — but I trust the success will increase as
the work advances.

I am middling in health; quite as well, if not better, than
when I left London. I will put some salt in my water before
I sponge. I am living right, and I want to do so, God help
me. Pray for me. Aly continuance away from London will
only be, as you intimate, just as the work of God needs it;
for instance, if a good work progresses I shall stay in Hanley a
fortnight and then go back to Longton for a little time — with
a little rest between.

If you go to the Tea Meeting, stay all night at Mr. Love's
and in the morning you can clear away all the papers and wrap
the cap in a parcel, and stow them away somewhere. Wrap
up Thomas's books ; you will find them in a cupboard under
the other books ; I should like to keep them clean, etc.

I will send you word if I want anything. I am in need of
shirts the worst of anything. But we shall see.

Now, my own sweet Kate, do be happy. I shall see you
again very soon, a month or 5 weeks at the farthest, because I
shall come up at the opening of the Haliwell Mount Chapel —
40 reformers with 100 Sunday scholars offered to join us and
worship in it. Farewell. Heaven bless you with every mercy
and all the grace you need. ...

Enclosure :

From "" The Staffordshire Sentinel.''

" Zion Chapel, Longton. A series of revival services have
been held in the above-named place of worship. On Wednes-
day 3rd the Rev. Wm. Booth of London preached and con-
tinued the services each evening until loth. The eft'ect of the
Revd. gentleman's preaching was truly astonishing; his view
of the Christian religion was clear, his delivery powerful,
melting his audience to tears ; a hallowed influence pervaded
the assemblies congregated to hear him during his stay in
Longton. The effect of his eloquence tells amazingly. He
reminds his hearers of J. B. Gough ; with every argument he

2i8 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

carries conviction to the heart. His glowing language, his
startling incidents, his appeals to the judgment of his hearers
are of no ordinary character, and the impression made upon
his auditory will not be readily effaced and the happy results
of his labours is an accession of about 150 members to the
church."

PS. — Do not show or read this to any one except your
mother — of course I do not believe or assent for one minute to
the truthfulness of these remarks made by an unknown friend
— I should think from the inaccuracy of the date and number
some outside hearer or member of another Church wrote it.

Cauldon Place, Shelton, Staffordshire,
J any. i6th, '55.
My dearest and most precious Katie — The work is pro-
gressing most satisfactorily; last night I had, Mr. Ridgeway
says, 2,000 persons to hear me preach, and the Lord helped me
to preach and afterwards we took down 40 names — I have a
splendid band of assistants. Some of the finest working men I
ever met with in a prayer meeting in my life. The Revd. A.
Lyn, the father of Mr. Lyn who was with me at Mr. Cooke's
has just been in; he is a blessed man, a second Charles Rich-
ardson ; he has come over to spend a night or two. Mr. Lyn's
son likewise came in this morning to stay over to-night, so
we shall have plenty of help. You must pray for me, my
dearest, and God grant you may yourself be refreshed and
blessed. I thought about you much last night. After the
toil and anxiety and excitement of the day is over, I generally
go to sleep thinking about you and calling your image up to
my recollections. Bless you, I hope to have a letter from you
to-morrow. The work is proceeding with mighty power at
Longton, about 40 have been converted since I left, and they
are expecting my return, and I have no doubt if I do a very
glorious work will be the result.

Cauldon Place, Shelton, Staffordshire,
Jany. 17, 1855.

My own sweet Catherine — So you are not very well, or
you were too busy going to this tea meeting, or you had some
other very good and very sufficient and very satisfactory excuse
for not writing to your own dear William yesterday. Well, a
note will come to-morrow and be very welcome.

The congregation was very glorious last night and, although
I did not preach with my usual pleasure, and as I thought
power, a good influence pervaded the meeting and we finished
up with the best prayer meeting we have yet had and swelled
the numbers up to about no on the three nights. Mr. Lyn and
his father were with us ; were much pleased and worked very

XV] MANY TROUBLES 219

hard. We had about the average Sunday night congregation
and if the weather clears up we shall have more to-night, but
it is now snowing very fast. I am still, through the boundless
mercy of God, very well in health, better than I have been for
some time.

I send you, my dear Kate, a despatch pretty often because
I know you are interested in the campaign. This is certainly
a great work and of sufficient importance to stop the mouth of
all gainsayers. Praise God, the preachers work gloriously, the
President is a sweet man and is very much pleased. Mr.
Ridgeway works hard and comes leading them up, broken-
hearted, in a way sufficient to melt a heart of stone. A re-
spectable woman met me this morning in deep distress ; she
was coming to see me ; she could not rest ; we went home with
her; Mr. Lyn, junior, and Mr. Gutteridge were with me;
prayed with her. etc. and she found peace directly. Praise
God for ever and ever. I am happy, very happy. My heart
is right, I trust, with respect to tracing all the power back to
God. I want to give Him all the praise. Bless you, I hope
you are well and happy. Write me all about your soul and
feelings towards me. I love you and I trust we shall be very
happy together.

Cauldon Hall,
Jan. 18, 1855.

My dearest Catherine — I must have returned the charge
you so often prefer against me, that of not having answered my
two or three letters, only that you make so good and so satis-
factory an excuse. I mean you did not notice in yours all the
contents of mine. However, I thank you for all that you say,
so kind and so loving. I am sorry you were not satisfied with
the tea meeting or with the friends ; / zvould not go again, were
I you, under any circumstances, at least not except / am there.
I am glad you have Miss Bates with you. I am surprised you
should spend a morning at Mrs. Love's doing so much like the
man who locked up, with a patent lock that nobody could pick,
his money in a small cash box, and the thieves carried box and
money together away. You have wrapped up my papers and
put them in the bottom cupboard where any one can open them,
etc. But I will write to Mrs. Love and ask her to put them in
my box under my bed and there they will be safe from the eye
of Bro. D. if he should wish to pry. I do not know him at all
and therefore I am anxious to be right. Bless you, you did
what you thought best, and that will always satisfy me. I re-
ceive twice or thrice per week long and kind letters from Mr.
Bates. I hope you will have done with that shield soon; ^
surely you have worn it long enough ; I shall make no pledges

1 An instrument for helping a weak spine.

220 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

of residence to any one I do not know where or what my
future path will be except that it will be that of an Evangelist.
I count my improved health and my strengthened chest as in-
dication added to many others that this is my path.

I am washing my chest or rather bathing it with salt and
cold water every morning altho' the ground is covered with
snow.

But now to my Despatch. Last night the congregation was
very good altho' the night was unfavourable — near 2,000 I
suppose were present, not quite perhaps — but it was a large
congregation. The word was with power and point. Lot's
wife. A good prayer meeting until half past 10 or later — •
and 40 names taken down, making near 160 during this week.
For all this we cannot be sufficiently thankful. The cases
were of a higher order last night. Many very fine young men
and many very respectable females. One old and fine leader
told me that his son and daughter had found the Lord for
whom he had been praying many many years. Another grey-
headed man said his daughter and daughter-in-law had found
the Lord for whom he had been praying near 28 years. Let
us give God all the praise. I trust that amid all this I am
kept right. I feel much for other ministers while they are
cordial, but if they speak against the work or against its re-
sults, then I feel something very near akin to anger rise within
my poor deceptive heart. ]\Iay God in mercy keep me right.
Pray for me, my darling, and I will if spared do all I can to
make thee as happy as God wills. I trust I shall have some
better news to tell you with respect to my mother's property ;
I have got another gleam of hope. Farewell. I pray for you
— and often, nay always, at night resign myself after the
toils and anxieties of the day to thoughts about your own
sweet self.

Cauldon Hall, Shelton,
Monday, January 22, 55.

My dearest and most precious Catherine, ... I should
have written on Saturday, but going to Longton in the morning
I had but time for two other letters which ought to have been
posted before. My engagements are now settled for the next
5 weeks so that you may know when to expect me and I can
know when to expect to see you. I finish here at Hanley on
Wednesday of this week. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday I
go home to Nottingham. On Sunday and the week following I
preach at Burslem, the following week at Newcastle on Trent, a
place about 2 or 3 miles from here — on the following week
I am at Longton again, and the following fortnight I am at
Mossley, a large place beyond ^lanchester — from thence I
come to London — when after resting awhile and taking part
in the opening of the New Chapel I go (by leave of my London

XV] MANY TROUBLES 221

friends) to Tipton in the Dudley East Circuit, then on to
Gateshead and Newcastle-on-Tyne, then to Bradford in York-
shire, and then home again by Conference to you.

Yesterday was a remarkable day. In the morning the con-
gregation was very good, at night that large chapel was
crowded; it was an imposing sight. I suppose there were
3,000 persons present, some from a distance, some Independent
Wesleyans, Church people. Primitives, many infidels and in-
differents. God helped me to preach with a little power and in
the prayer meeting we took down 50 names, many good cases.
I should much have liked you to have been there. Altho' I
exerted myself very much and stayed at the prayer meeting for
some time I am very well to-day; my chest is a little sore, but
nothing in comparison with what it was sometimes in London.
For this I cannot be sufficiently thankful.

I am anxious to see you, I want to talk many things over.
Especially about money matters — I feel how possible it is to
be led wrong, already Satan harasses me much on the subject,
and it must not be. I must preserve my disinterestedness and
put my confidence in God.

Cauldon Place,
Jany. 23, 1855.

My dearest Love, ... I am sorry for your mother's sake
that Mrs. Harthorne is going away, but perhaps some one else
may come. Do not doubt the good providence of God. Bless
you I trust that your anxieties on this subject will end and that
you will in all other things likewise be happy. I do not think
it wise or well to anticipate any perfect state of bliss on earth.
This is at best a changing and unsatisfactory world. And our
wisest and happiest course is to lay up treasure in Heaven.

The work continues ; last night the congregation was very
large and I preached with some liberty and power and after-
wards a number of very clear and satisfactory conversions
took place. Near 140 names were taken. I am somewhat
tired and fatigued this morning, but a good walk will set me
up again.

Give my kind love to your dear mother. The newspapers
and preachers continue to say very flattering things concerning
my ability. Mr. Donald, a very much respected preacher in
our donomination, came over last week from Mossley, first to
hear me and then if he approved to invite me there ; he told
Mr. McAndy that I have a stronger mind than Mr. Caughey ;
but of course he was thoroughly mistakeyi. I am satisfied
that I have a far lower estimate of my ability than those
around me.

Farewell. Write me again at your leisure. I must say I
like the " you " and " your " on paper better than " thee " and
** thou " and '' thine." I think your writing improves.

222 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

Six days after having expressed his disapproval of
" thou " and " thee," WiUiam Booth writes the following
impulsive letter to Catherine IMumford, a letter as valuable
and significant perhaps as any in the series :

Waterloo Road, Burslem,
Jany. 2gth, '55.

My dearest, my own precious Love — What a time it
seems since I heard from tlicc. What a time since I wrote
to thee — and thou shalt have the first fruits of my pen and I
send thee the offering of a loving heart, a heart that never
loved thee as it loves thee now. Thou art precious to my in-
most soul and I will not only enshrine thee there but guard
and watch over and protect thy image from harm or injury.
I have this last day or two unceasingly carried thee with me.
in my inmost thoughts and even when surrounded by crowds
and listening to the voices of hundreds, I have seemed only to
live for God and thee. Heaven grant that this sweet dream,
nay, reality of love and fond affection, may be perpetuated
for ever. Oh to see thee and press thy hand and clasp thee
to my heart ; and this shall soon be — till then, God protect and
care for thy welfare.

Other things continue bright and cheerful. I left my
mother better in health and more comfortable and happy in
mind. Mary and Emma are likewise better. I arrived here
in Burslem about 9 o'clock on Saturday, after a very cold and
wearisome journey. I found a hearty welcome from the
friends where I am now staying and they do all they can to
make me happy. It is a very nice town, containing about 1,500
inhabitants. The chapel is a very unique and comfortable one,
rather small, will hold about 800 persons. I never preached
to a congregation so packed in my life as it was last night,
and I suppose hundreds went away unable to obtain admission ;
all up the pulpit stairs, in the aisles, in the communion rails,
in fact wherever there was standing room. I preached with
a little liberty and some power and about 40 names were taken
down during the progress of the prayer meeting. The Love
Feast in the afternoon was a very interesting one on the
whole ; it was the best beginning I have as yet been privileged
to have. I suppose I am to travel until Conference, if my
Circuit will agree to accept of a supply. I come to London
all well on the 4th of March and stay 3 weeks. I hope they
will be the happiest three weeks in my life so far. Why not?
we belong to God. Jesus is our Saviour, His Blood is our
Salvation, and we belong to eacJi other — as fully as we can
do, until the last link has been put to our union. Have we not
perfectly each other's love? Oh bless you, my darling, on

XV] MANY TROUBLES 223

my bosom your head shall rest — yes rest. I reciprocate all
your fond expressions and I assure you that you are in my
heart.

Did you receive all my letters last week? Did you receive
one with some postage stamps enclosed? Direct to me at
Mr. Hawley's, Waterloo Road, Burslem, Staffordshire. Oh
my dearest, let us trust in God. I hope to do something for
this poor perishing world, and I do want you to give me
your full heart's sympathy to aid me to realize the big desires
that have existence in my breast. '* You will." You say,
" I will," even as you read, and you shall be mine, mine fully.
I will love you as few are loved and watch over you as few are
watched over, and we will live for each other and every sinew
and every nerve shall be strained to save thousands and tens
of thousands of perishing souls. Amid crowds and toils and
anxieties and excitements I will carry you in my arms, nay,
enshrined in my soul, and when we meet I will look the love I
cannot speak. Farewell ; never more fondly did I press an
epistle to my lips before posting than I do this, because I know
it will meet thy gaze. God bless you — remember me as your
own — and love me as you were wont to do in days gone by.

PS. — The editor of one of our local papers has announced
that a sketch of one of my sermons and an article on the
services will appear in next week's issue. What thinkest thou
of that, my love? I was told that he was there two nights.
It matters not. I hope God will help me to stand the storm
when it comes and I trust He will keep me right amid His
sunshine.

Wilt thou pray for me? Dr. Crofts speaks kindly of my
essay.

Waterloo Road, Burslem,
Jany. 30, '55.

My own sweet and precious Treasure, ... I have been
talking to you, breathing your name, musing on your love to
me and your kindness, and thinking how much I should love to
see you and to press you to my fond and anxious heart. Oh
Catherine, I do love thee. Thou art indeed my treasure, the
hope and the stay of my soul. I mean so far as earthly things
should be dear. I do not love thee more. No, I may love
thee very much before I love thee more than is consistent with
my love to Hhn who is my Redeemer and my God. Him first,
thou next. Bless thee we are one, and He shall be our all in
all. Didst thou get my letter of yesterday? Didst thou read
it over and reciprocate every fond expression? Art thou
not mine, and am I not thine? Yes! Yes! The darkness
has passed and the day of unclouded affection has dawned,
and we have woke up to the deep joy of loving and of being
loved.

224 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

My health is very good. I am strong. 1 was much more
tired with going home than had I stayed here and preached.
My Mother is well ; there is no news about the property. I
will take the globules for thy dear sake. My chest is re-
markably well and I believe you will be surprised at the im-
provement. ]\Iy leaving London again is to be laid before the
Circuit and I shall do as they wish. You talk about my pop-
ularity; dearest, believe me, I care about pleasing God and
thee and saving sinners. Li seeking the salvation of souls
popularity has come. It \\\\\ not alter my future course ; not
an atom. I mean to do right and to do my duty, all my duty.
\Miat I alluded to about money I will say when we meet ; it
is not worth while to waste time to put it on paper. Don't
talk about my forgiving you ; send me word that you fully
and freely and for ever forgive me all the past, and that in the
future w'e shall be first each other's and then fullv the Lord's.
Farezvell, my own sweet love — Bless you : pray for me.
You are lonely without me, and I am lonely wnthout thee.
Oh how I wanted thee last night to go liorne to. Xo one
else can understand me. No one else can sympathize with me ;
thy bosom is my earthly heaven, next to the joy of my work
and my Heavenly Master. Thou art my joy, and thy soul
is my paradise. Farewell. The 3rd of March will soon be
here.

P.S. — I kiss this letter many times.

Thou shalt have another pen when I come up.

In the following letter one obtains not only a description
of religious excitement by \\'illiam Booth, but the inter-
esting and striking confession of a revivalist's misgiving in
the midst of a meeting:

BuRSLEY, Fehy. i. 1S55.

My dearest and most precious Love — I just scribble you
a line. How can I help doing so? I want to tell you a few^
thoughts of which my heart is full. I said little or nothing
yesterday as to the work here, and I want to tell you what
passed through my mind respecting it last night.

Monday evening was a very heavy and painful one. We had
two meetings after the sermon, one in the chapel and one in
the school room. A\'e took down 25 names, altho' it was one
of the most confused meetings I ever was in. Tuesday and
Wednesday evenings were the most triumphant I ever wit-
nessed, under any circumstances. We confined the meeting
to the chapel. Last night twice or thrice I became alarmed,
the excitement was almost overwhelming : I feared for the
people. I feared lest we should not be able to keep the
reins of the meeting. The cries of distress were thrilling,
piercing, running, as one gentleman expressed it, through you

xvj MANY TROUBLES 225

to your finger ends. Some were violent, commenced shrieking,
clapping the forms, etc. ; these I stopped directly ; in fact all
the more violent I stopped as soon as I could. If I doubted,
as in two instances, sincerity, I stopped them authoritatively ;
if I had confidence in them I poured on the balm of Jesus'
salvation and the sweet promises of His Word, and they soon
turned their tears and wailings into joy.

Amid all this I could not help but reason. Is it right? Is
this the best way? Perhaps I was severely tempted to believe
it all a delusion ? Perhaps it was my own unbelief, but it was
strange that these thoughts should be passing in my breast
while I stood upon the form, the calmest and at times the
most unmoved in all that dense assembly, directing and con-
trolling every movement of the meeting so far as such a num-
ber of excited beings could be controlled and guided.

The people are more ignorant here than in other places I
have visited, many who come are backsliders, and they wring
their hands, and strike their breasts, and beat the communion
rail enough to melt and break hearts of stone.

To-night we shall have a crash and no mistake. The place
is literally packed, sitting and standing every night.

And how art thou, my love, my sweet one, my hope?
When I enter my chamber, oh how it seems to bring me into
communion with thy spirit. Solitude and silence has this
effect. And thou dost think about me. Bless thee, I am thine
and thou art mine, and we are one. Farewell. My heart
yearns for thy sweet companionship ; to have thee to love
and to talk to and to sympathize with. I want more of the
love of Heaven and more of the love of earth, thy love, love
to thee.

My health is wonderfully good considering my continued
exertion and the protracted excitement, and I am going to-
morrow to the home of a very nice gentleman where I shall
rest two days — and get strong again to labour. I am much
better than when in London — in health. I do hope that I
shall be able to surprise you with my health. Take care of
thyself my precious for my sake.

Give my love to mother. Get me two good shirts and two
night shirts, i yard and ^4 long at least, ready to send next
week when I send you word. Farewell. Heaven bless and
care for thee.

P.S. — I intended to post this letter yesterday — I reached
the post ofiice — and then found that it was not sealed, in-
tended doing it with wafer at Mr. Ridgeway's, forgot it,
made sure I had posted it until I found it in my pocket to-day.
Bless you, I am very sorry, but post it now. I will write you,
all well, to-morrow. We had a triumphant night last night.
Good-bye.

226 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

Clayton, Newcastle, Staffordshire,
Feby. 5, 1855.

My dearest and most precious Love — ... I am sorry
that things are not so sunny with your Mamma as one could
wish, but we must hope for better and brighter days. I do
not know how my mother and sister would have lived had I
not stepped in just as I did; for Mary has been unable to get
any work for a long time. I left them £5:0 : o, and I am
reduced to about 15/- only that I expect something — a little,
from Burslem. I want a coat when I can raise the money.
But enough, I did -not intend writing this rubbish.

Your letters are not quite so long as they used to be, but
you are busy. I am sure I am very much delighted to hear of
your industry, your improved health, and that you have
adopted the cold water plan. I have very great faith in it. I
have what they call a medical rubber. A towel made on pur-
pose. Almost as rough as though made of horsehair. I came
from Nottingham with a dreadful pain at the bottom of my
back — was very bad for two days — I bathed it once, with cold
water and salt, and rubbed it, and I never felt it again. I am
not so well to-day. My chest is sore with yesterday's exer-
tions. I intend being more careful to-night.

Yesterday was more successful than ever as a beginning.
Altho' it rained in torrents, the chapel was crowded, many
went away unable to obtain admission. We registered during
the prayer meeting 40 names. What think you of the news-
paper report? We often laugh about his likening me to a
Jezi.'.

. . . Pray for me, my darling — that I may be labouring
for Him. For His glory — conscientiously trying to do His
will — help me to do as much as I can — be my guardian
angel — watch over me and prompt to benevolent effort for
the good of others.

Newcastle, Staffordshire,
Fehy. 8, 1855.

My dearest and most precious Love — Your very kind
and thoughtful letter is to hand this morning. It really is a
credit to both your head and your heart. I did not write
yesterday or the day preceding because of circumstances and
am sorry for it. I fully intended yesterday but was awkwardly
and unexpectedly kept away from home and was very low and
desponding all the day. I am better mentally and physically
to-day. I intend, all well, resting an entire week in London.
I commence the revival services at the new place on the
second Sunday. I thank you for your remarks on the
strictures contained in the new^spapers ; they are very judicious.
I do hear from time to time of political afifairs. / think my
duty is to leave London after a three or four weeks' stay there.

XV] MAXY TROUBLES 227

The people are pulling me almost to pieces down here. I have
letters from Leeds, Dewsbury, and Bristol the last two days.
A meeting is held to-day in London to decide whether Mr.
Downs is to be accepted as a supply for me till Conference or
whether I shall be retained after my return ; to the decision of
that meeting I shall calmly submit. You shall not on any
consideration be parted from me when your own heart dictates
the path of duty to be with me. I have confidence in thy
judgment and in thy love for the great work of saving souls.
I have no fear, neither has Mr. ]^Iills on this subject. And
when thou art, should God see it best to bless us with offspring,
when thou art thus detained thou shalt have a little paradise
in some central spot and my mother shall live with us, should
God spare us and spare her and Emma. And then our
winter income will procure us all the blessings that we need.
Fear not this residence: thou canst make excursions with me,
and thou wilt have confidence in those thou leavest for a
season in charge of our loved ones and our home for a season.
Should we have no children, we will travel together. I never
think of anything else in my joy, and thou shalt be my guardian
angel.

I am doing nothing mentally. I intend doing something by
and by. I improve my sermons as I preach them. ]\Iy
health is better, my chest stronger. I drink a deal of Linseed
Tea. Didst thou ever try it? Do not fear about being
separated. If you can go / shall not go without you. Be-
sides, v.'here I have been once many homes at once offer for a
second visit. Here I am overwhelmed with kindness. The
w^ork progresses very favourably. Chapels crowded every
night — riveted attention perhaps for an hour and a quarter's
sermon and then mighty prayer meetings such as you never
sazi*. Last night 67 names were taken.

I adhere to the cold water bathing of my chest and shoulders
and back. I do not retire much before 12 on an average —
sleep well, rise about ^ past 8, breakfast and walk till
dinner — afterwards do my correspondence, read a little and
prepare for night, leaving the prayer meeting about 10 — last
night they did not leave the chapel until yi to 12. I have
not seen Kossuth's speeches. I was so glad to hear about
your improved health, you cannot think how overjoyed I am
at the prospect of your being well.

We will talk more and arrive at some definite opinions
and rules for the government of our future lives with respect
to money; the controversy becomes an unpleasant and un-
profitable one to nie. I have no fear of getting sufficient for
existing z^'ants; it will be with respect to laying up for the
future.

And now mv dearest, I thank vou from mv inmost heart

228 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

for all your kind words and love. Do not say I have not tried
to answer your letters. I do try. I will try more in the
future. You must make some little allowance for my cir-
cumstances. Give my l)est love to your dear mamma. Take
great care of your health. I will make the night shirts do.
I shall try to manage now until I come to town if I can. If
I want them I will write again. Have you two shirts^ 1
want them worse ; mine are all in tatters.

Bless you, farewell. Look forward to the future with a
trusting and hopeful soul.

Clayton, Newcastle,
Feby. 9, 1855.

My dearest Catherine — How art thou getting on and
what art thou doing? I sit here nearly alone and I hail the
solitude with delight, in a snug, warm, and handsomely
furnished room — with every earthly comfort and all I desire
but thee; how I should love to have thee to help me to enjoy
a quiet evening; but it must not be and I must quietly resign
myself to my lot; if spared we shall soon pass some happy,
happy, happy hours together. By God's help I will calmly
wait, and with His blessing I will enjoy the present and not
be always living only for the future. There is much in the
present ; I have a great deal in my work that others would
give worlds for ; I have many kind friends ; I have every
earthly luxury ^ and attention, and then I have thee, and a hope,
a real and certain hope, of Heaven.

LoNGTON, Fehy. 12, 1855.

My very dear Love — What art thou doing, I wonder
just now? Perhaps thinking about me. I do hope my two
last letters have come to hand, and I do trust that thou art
very happy. How is it with thee in spiritual matters? I do
hope better and brighter. I awoke very happy this morning.
I am truly a child of many mercies; how good God is to me!
Oh, my dearest, help me to praise Him.

Yesterday was a day of great anxiety. I knew expectation
was very high and I had comparatively new and untried ser-
mons to preach. At night the chapel was densely crowded,
packed. I suppose 2,200 persons were present — the gallery
is an immense one and the people seem right upon you. I
was very much impressed with a sense of my weakness and
insignificance to accomplish any thing good except divinely
assisted, and God did graciously help me to preach a little
from ** Why will ye die? "

We had a tolerably good prayer meeting; 38 professed to
find peace — some good cases, a sad lack of efficient help. The

1 It is interesting to remember that this man, with " every earthly
luxury," has just confessed that his shirts are in tatters.

XV] MANY TROUBLES 229

congregation was very respectable and intelligent, some of the
leading secularists were present, and seemed very attentive
and solemn, and I hope God will impress the truth upon their
minds. I shall have to preach new sermons the next two or
three nights, and therefore anticipate much anxiety.

The friends at Newcastle were very kind and expressed an
earnest wish to have the pleasure of seeing you the next time
I visit them. I have some thought of selecting Newcastle as a
place of residence. It is central — a nice little town ; in it
are many intelligent warm-hearted and loving friends; the
scenery around it is of a romantic and pleasing character ; our
cause is the leading dissenting interest in the place, and alto-
gether I was pleased with it, and I have seen a nice Httle house
that I think would suit us well. Mr. Dixon the gentleman
with whom I stayed, made me a present of £2 for my mother.
That was very kind, was it not? They gave me £3 for my
week's services — and every luxury that heart could desire
besides to promote my health and comfort.

A gentleman of the name of Bailey who keeps his carriage
and pair, and who lives in a little paradise about two miles
out of Longton, would very much like us to spend a month to
rest at his house next summer; but I mean to visit Paris,
Switzerland, and the Rhine, if at all practicable — but we shall
see.

My present popularity almost frightens me. I am alarmed
as to the maintaining of it. You understand me, I mean the
carrying out of the work of God. My sermon yesterday
morning was a perfect failure. But God can, and I firmly
believe, God will work. And now my love, I shall if spared
soon see you and again we can sit and talk about everything.

Oldham, Feby. 21, '55.

My dearest and most precious Catherine — Bless you,
how I do wish for an interview — to see and love you. I am
very low in spirits — very; the work does not progress to my
satisfaction, the congregations are not very good and the cases
not of a very encouraging character. My heart yearns for
something more glorious and effective ; here I am surrounded
by a dense population of I should think 80,000 people, and yet
our congregation last night was only about 300; but that is
better than preaching to 20 or 30, the average week night con-
gregation here.

Pray for me, my dearest Love ; oh to live nearer to God !

I am rapidly making the acquaintance of the preachers of
the Connexion. Many of them come to hear me at different
times and places ; I am afraid I am not making that impression
with respect to my piety that I ought to do. Oh to live close
to God! My soul pants for something deeper, realler, more

230 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

hallowed, in my soul's experience. If I fail it will be here.
My dear, my own dear, write to me, all about your heart, all
about your health ; tell me you love me with satisfaction, that
is if it be so. Oh for an uninterrupted future of harmony
and confidence — when it will be one of bliss and peace. I
will try and serve God better, I want Him more in my heart
motives, in my soul's thinking and desires. To look at men
and things and duties from a place close to His throne. The
Lord help me. Let us live for each other individually and to-
gether as one ; let us labour and toil for Him.

MOSSLEY,

Monday, Feby. 26, '55.

My dearest and precious Catherine — I suppose that
the storm must have had some influence on the delay that has
occurred in the delivery of the letters. Your two last announc-
ing your painful illness were not put into my hands until
yesterday after the morning's service. ]\Iy last ought to have
reached you on Saturday, and I was anxiously expecting an
answer before I wrote again. Oh, had I but known I would
have employed Saturday evening in writing consolation to you
so far as I could have done so. I am indeed sorry to hear
of your illness. I had feared it. I had often done so.
Something has often whispered that I was counting too much
on my visit to town ; but you will be better by then, I trust.
But why not call a doctor at once? I have not much faith in
them, but still I would not have delayed a moment — especially
when you were so ill. It must have been very sudden.
Whatever could have been the cause? But you will be better,
and as you gain strength I trust you will be less the subject
of these painful attacks. Bless you, I should much like to see
you, and to have your company. I doubt not you feel the
same. I shall (all well) be with you soon, and then I will
sit by your side and we will talk all things over. If you have
not answered my last letter do not trouble to do so. Never
fear on my account, anything. All you have to do is to take
care of yourself.

This attack seems very mysterious — just as we were
cherishing such hopes of the future and of your ability to
travel, etc. — this comes in and brings food to me for more
anxiety respecting the future. \\'ell, we must leave it with
the Lord for the present.

This last week has been one of the most anxious, nervous,
and desponding weeks I ever turned over in my life. Yester-
day was a very heavy day — very few, if any, understand
me. Coneregations here were very poor yesterday, the cause
is dreadfully low. Only eight cases at night. It would take

XV] MANY TROUBLES 231

me a month to raise the place. If you were with me I think
then I could plod on for a month or six weeks and more, and
move the town.

I was very unwell yesterday but am much better this morn-
ing. I was very uncomfortable in my house last week. I am
just as much the contrary this. I never was more cared for
than here ; if ever you come to Mossley I have no doubt that
this will be your home, and you will find every luxury and com-
fort that heart can desire and I shall be with you, and I am sure
altho' I distrust myself more than you distrust me, yet I am
sure that I shall be anxious to make you as happy as you de-
sire. To tell you that I love you seems cold ; you know it,
I know it, — you are mine, we are linked together, already
united, already one. Bless you a thousand times, send me a
line to tell me all is well in your heart towards me — I
prayed for you last night, yes I pray for you as my Catherine,
as my ozvn Kate. And every cloud will pass away and we
shall yet be helps to one another and unitedly a blessing to
the world. Remember me kindly to your mother and father.
We shall soon meet — that is, if you send me word that you
repose confidence in me — and you do, I believe it, your last
letters tell me that you do. We shall soon meet — Oh this
uncertain world, how oft has it deceived me ! I suspect it at
every turn. There is nothing certain but uncertainty and let
me say something else, thy love to me. Yes, that is certain,
unchanging. Bless you, count me your own — oh, to come
and see thee, and that is so near at hand, and thou wilt be a
little better, able to take a little walk in the sunshine.

Cheer up — look not beyond to-day, at least not beyond
our meeting. We will part but little while I am in London.
I do not know where my salary is to come from while in
town. But never mind, I shall get over that. Do not trouble
to write much — only one line to tell me your heart is right
with me. I will write you every day. If the letters don't
come to hand blame the post, not your own in love's closest
and most tender bonds.

LoNGTON, March 24, 1855.

My dearest and only Love — I am safely arrived and
most comfortably accommodated. I thought much about thee
during my journey, and if you were here I should have noth-
ing more to hope for, so far as earth is concerned. I am very
anxious, of course, about the services ; how can I be other-
wise when so much expectation is aroused and I feel so in-
adequately prepared and qualified to satisfy it? But I must,
I will, trust in God.

I had a very cold ride the first part of my journey. My

21,2 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

portmanteau acts well. The cabman charged me 3/- and
bhistered and stormed because I wanted to give him 2/6.
The friends are all pleased to see me.

LoNGTON, March 26, '55.

My dearest Catherine — Bless you ! I trust you received
mine this morning written on Saturday. Should you not re-
ceive my letters regularly during this visit, wait awhile
patiently and attribute the failure to the post, not to any wil-
ful neglect of mine, for I intend writing as often as you desire.

On the whole, I had a good day yesterday considering that
the sermons were new for this special work. In the morning
I preached from '* Pulling them out of the fire " — the first time
of preaching. I think it will make an effective discourse. I
tried to the utmost of my ability to deepen the desire of the
Christians present for the salvation of their fellowmen. At
night from Blind Bartimeus, with several new illustrations : I
had much liberty. The chapel by six o'clock was packed to
suffocation, many, very many, wxre sent away unable to get
inside the door. The walls and ceiling were thoroughly satu-
rated by the perspiration, so much so that the w^ater dropped
from above and ran down the walls. We had a few good
cases; about twenty; not so many as I expected, but a good
commencement. Oh, it would do your soul good to hear the
people talk of the good work that is going on, of the great and
glorious changes that have taken place. Expectation is every
way running very high and the leaders and members now are
prepared to expect the greatest things. I was tired of course
last night and wished much for your company at home, and
then the day would have seemed delightfully complete.

Write me when you receive this and enclose in your note
the elastic out of the collar I wore on Saturday, I have come
away without one and cannot wear these all rounds. I have
got a horrid pen and you must excuse this scrawl. Give my
very kind love to your mother. Write me a loving letter —
I am anxious to hear about you. Think of me as being fully
and entirely your own faithfully and for ever. Yes, we are
one.

P.S. — My ink is awfully thick and this pen of thine will
hardly make a mark.

Cauldon Place, Staffordshire Potteries,
March 28, 1855.
]\Iy dearest and precious Catherine — Bless you! If I
could but have you in a snug home all to ourselves it would be
very pleasant and happy.

I am sorry that my appetite and digestion have failed me
again, directly on leaving London. I believe that the beer

XV] MANY TROUBLES

233

agreed with me wonderfully — I am as different as possible ;
I believe that bitter ale or porter would be very beneficial in
this res{)ect — but, do not fear, I will stick to the pledge.
Send me word how you make the beer, and I will try and get
some made next week. I hope you are happy; send me all
particulars about your health. I am staying at Mr. Ridge-
way's ; he is very kind and cordial.

Remember me as being all your own faithfully, yes faith-
fully yours. Pray for me. Oh I want more religion, love to
God and love to man.

Oldbury, near Birmingham,
March 31/55.

My dearest and most precious Love — I am once more
located in a new abode. The sweet, long, trusting, and very
tender epistle came to hand this morning. I should have
written yesterday, but really was not alone scarce five minutes
of the day. You may expect me to be more regular now. I
have announced to the lady where I am staying now that I
do not go out at all to visit, and I intend sticking to it. I am
sorry to have competition two days next week ; Mr. Gough
lectures on Monday and Tuesday. The note you sent me
from the Insurance Society is not satisfactory in fixing me to
pay £y : 18 19; they have put me down, if I am not mistaken,
£1 : o : o more than the printed form states. I have not a
printed book with me, but I think it was £2 :6 :o per iioo;
but I left the card at your house. I have written by this post
to the secretary and then you shall, when he answers, have
further information.

The chapels have without exception been very full during
the week. And I trust some considerable good has been done.
I am a little better to-day ; I shall have some horehound beer
made. Thou need not send the horehound; if thou had sent
me word how to direct for it to be made, that is what I want ;
we can get any quantity of horehound here.

Bless thee, thy letter did me good. It seemed so trusting
and hopeful. I have gathered some little encouragement con-
cerning myself during the week. Mr. Ridgcway has made me
a present of the case for my papers; it is just the thing I
wanted. Did not I tell thee? When wilt thou believe in my
knowledge of human nature? It would have cost me at least
10/- or more. It was very kind of him. I am very much
pleased with Pearson and with Blair, and I hope to report
some favourable if not considerable progress in study next
week.

Oldbury, April 2, '55.

My dearest and only Love — I am writing April, thou
seest. How quickly is time flying away. Oh, how important
the moments, how seldom we think so. and how far less seldom

234 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

we act as if they were. Well, I mean this month to be a
better one for labour and results than the last, mentally,
morally, and spiritually, by God's blessing. May it be so !
Amen !

And how are you ? I have been thinking about you and
your future, if spared you will soon write yourself another
name. Bless you, I trust thou wilt be happy. You will be
pleased to hear that I am very much better. I obtained the
Quinine mixture on Saturday night. I was so very unwell —
and I am taking it twice a day instead of three times ; I drank
a mug of strong horehound tea yesterday, and it is astonishing
how much better I am, although I had a heavy day yesterday.

The congregations were very good. At night the Chapel
was packed, aisles and everywhere; a very respectable
gathering. I preached in the morning with great liberty and
power, and at night I had a comfortable time to myself; the
people wept very much. We had not the amount of good
done I expected. The friends took down sixteen names.

I am sorry, and I said so from the pulpit, that our services
clashed with Mr. Gough's coming. Three of the most re-
spectable and influential persons in the society are publi-
cans ! ! ! ! It is positively true ! All apparently more than
usually nice, good-hearted people. I am very sorry — very%
very sorry. I hope to raise the religious feelings so high as to
make them all ashamed of the infernal traffic and thus leave it.

I am reading Blair, Pearson, and Dick very carefully. The
weather is very beautiful. Take care of thy dear self. We
shall soon meet. Write me always particulars about your
health. Do not attempt too much, as is thy custom as well
as mine. I mean physically as well as mentally. I am glad
Miss Tasker has called. She is a good creature, I think.
Let her do some sewing for you. Pay her what she charges
or more if you think it is worth it.

Smethwick, nr. Birmingham,
April 4, '55.

My own precious Catherine — Thy sweet note came to
hand this morning. I trust that by this time thou art much
better. Thou should wrap up well when going out, put thy
shawl on, and then I think the East Wind would not get to thy
chest. I am better in health but not very first-rate in spirits.
Several things perplex me. The service last night was not so
successful, altho' the congregation far exceeded my expecta-
tion ; we had four or five very good cases, but we ought to
have had more. I am very dissatisfied with the state of my
heart towards the Lord. I have too much of self wrought up
with all I do. The Lord help me.

The persons 1 named to you who keep public-houses and are

XV] MANY TROUBLES 235

members of society here have been to hear Gough once if not

both nights. I trust he has done them good. You would be

surprised if you were here to find how differently the traffic is

looked upon to what it is in other places. It seems to be a

settled and deep-rooted conviction that ale or beer is as much

a necessary of life to the miners and furnacemen as bread or

meat. And these publicans would tell you that they act on

this principle; they do not open on the Sabbath, neither do

they allow drunkenness on their premises, etc. These are the

arguments with which I suppose they justify the business to

themselves.

Smethwick, Birmingham,

April 6, '55.

My own dear and most precious Love — What a time it
seems since I saw you. I do hope that cold has left you by
this and that you are enjoying your walks, solitary though
they be, in the mild spring weather. I had a very nice ram-
ble this morning. I have not read much this week, but I have
sat too close and worked too hard ; I found that out yesterday.
To-day I am doing nothing but this, and a long letter to Mr.
Bates, and a little of Pearson and Dick to-night, and perhaps
a page or two of a sermon. I don't preach to-night. Mr.
Bates wrote me again a letter as long as the one you have [con-
cerning Insurance]. He has seen the Doctor, but he won't
alter — he has written to the Directors at Edinburgh and he
recommends me, should they not alter, to submit. It is a
shame.

We have had a good week on the whole, some of the cases
very satisfactory. W^e have taken down about eighty names,
many more persons are under conviction, and I trust they will
be gathered in. I go to Bradford to-morrow. I suppose it
is about 140 miles. I shall ride first-class. My head has been
very bad; I don't know when worse lately than yesterday.
The doctor in London says I have too much nervous energy
for my muscle. Therefore rest and exercise, as Dr. CoUinette
of Guernsey said, are the only things that will benefit me. My
digestion is considerably better. You will say I am talking a
deal about myself. Well, I can talk to thee. And my
thoughts run on this just now — I don't care what any of
them say, doctors or not, I believe I have a rational hope
(without accident) of living thirty years longer. — Believe
me to remain, yours very faithfully and tenderly, William.

Bradford,
April 10, '55. _
My dearest and darling Catherine — In heading this
letter I have just discovered that it is my birthday. I am
to-day 26. Oh the importance of employing this fleeting time.

236 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

Oh, my Catherine, what must I do? I am almost in despair
with niysclf, and yet I am afraid if I were to study more it
would be at once injurious to my health. I am preaching
hard and therefore must be content. Bless you; I should like
much to see you.

I am not very comfortable in my home — a miserably mis-
managed family, possessing a respectable income if not wealth,
yet here is very little domestic happiness. Snarling and snap-
ping at one another ; an indulgent mother and a quiet father.
Oh, it is almost more sometimes than my patience can hear ;
and I am inclined when I hear a youth of 17 tell his mother
he will not do something, to tell him if he were my son, and
said so to his mother, / would knock him down. Well, thank
God, I never got so far in all my waywardness and ingratitude
to a fond and indulgent mother. And yet we have a beautiful
house, furniture, etc. Happiness doth not consist in the many
things which a man possesseth.

Bradford,
April 12, '55.

My dearest and most precious Love — I have been think-
ing much about thee the last two days. And I doubt not thou
hast been thinking about me too.

Your letter and contents came to hand yesterday. I con-
tinue the cold-water bathing every morning. The remarks on
Woman's position I will read again before I answer. From
the first reading I cannot see anything in them to lead me for
one moment to think of altering my opinion. You combat a
great deal that I hold as firmly as you do — viz. her equality,
her perfect equality, as a whole — as a being. But as to con-
cede that she is man's equal, or capable of becoming man's
equal, in intellectual attainments or prowess — I must say that
is contradicted by experience in the world and my honest con-
viction. You know, my dear, I acknowledge the superiority
of your sex in very many things — in others I believe her in-
ferior. Vice versa with man.

I would not stop a woman preaching on any account. I
would not encourage one to begin. You should preach if you
felt moved thereto : felt equal to the task. I would not stay
you if I had power to do so. Altho', / should not like it. It
is easy for you to say my views are the result of prejudice :
perhaps they are. I am for the world's salvation; I will
quarrel with no means that promises help.

Bradford,

April 16, '55.
My dearest and most precious Kate — ... I am yours,
wilful, impulsive, and fitful as I am, I am yours in an affection
enduring and tender and faithful. And I am indulging in
fond hopes that we shall be very happy together.

XV] MANY TROUBLES 237

I hope to have an industrious week. I have changed resi-
dence as you will see, and am now very comfortable, have a
delightfully pleasant bedroom, and all my wants carefully and
thoughtfully supplied.

This is my first entry into Yorkshire, and of course I was
unknown but by report among my own people. I stand now
on more favourable ground, and if I can find material I have
no doubt in after days, if spared, to see something very
glorious indeed.

Care of B. J. Proctor, Esq.,
15 Regent Terrace, Newcastle-on-Tyne,
April 21, '55.

My dearest and precious Katie — I have just arrived,
taken tea. and sit down to write to you a hasty note. So far
as I can judge I am domiciled very comfortably indeed.
Whom do you think I saw in the station at Leeds, just as I
was taking my place in the carriage for the North? ''Luke
Tycrman." I went and spoke to him and he appeared very
cordial. He is stationed at Newcastle. He invited me to go
and see him; he was going to Bradford to preach to-morrow.
I hear he has been very ill, but is now much better. David
Hay is stationed at Bradford ; I did not see him while there.

Bless you, it has been a splendid day and I have had a splen-
did ride — oh what beautiful and diversified scenery have we
passed through, flying more than anything else — rushing,
screaming, panting on, on, ON, 40 miles an hour sometimes,
then stopping, and then on again, until we reached Newcastle ;
and I wanted you with me. I want you to see all that's beau-
tiful and share all that is truly blessed and sweet and preciotis.
I am full of hope for this place. I have no doubt but it will
be hard work to make an impression, but it can be done, it
must be done ; God help us and it shall be done. The preacher
is a very hearty man, and I doubt not but we shall have a very
cordial co-operation. Good-bye. I must be off.

15 Regent Terrace, Newcastle-on-Tyne,
April 23, '55.

My own dear Catherine — I wonder how you are getting
on. I should much like to see and have a talk with you this
very fine morning. I am just going down to Tynemoiith with
Dr. Candelet, one of our preachers, to have another fond look
at '' old ocean." I wish thou wast here and going with
us. . . .

The people are shrewd, intelligent, and cold here, prover-
bially so. From all I can gather the cause oi religion is very
low, all sects alike involved in a cold, frozen apathy. The
chapel in which I am preaching is a very good one. Will hold
about 1,200, and we had it near full last night. The best con-

238 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

gregation that has been in it for many a year. \Vm. Martin
was here a fortnight ago, preached in it twice on Easter
Sunday, and on the following Monday gave another edition
of the London speech. But, after all, I suppose I had double
the number of people to hear me to what he had. The Re-
formers here are very unsettled ; I suppose both the preachers
would come to us if they could. Altho' we had so large a
crowd last night, for lack of earnest co-workers the prayer-
meeting was comparatively a failure. 12 persons came for-
ward. Many stayed under deep conviction, but I could not
get any one to look about the chapel and bring the penitents
up. I was very much annoyed and wished myself anywhere
else, and told the ladies so. Oh it is indeed hard work. On
the whole, the commencement is very encouraging.

Write me full particulars of what you are doing. I am
much better in health. I go from hence to ^^lanchester. You
will be surprised when I tell you the Bradford friends gave
me ±5:0:0 for my fortnight's toil — out of which my travel-
ling expenses were ±1:6:3. I shall not get much here.
Never mind, this is not my chief aim or anything near it.
Xo : I can say that the great ruling anxiety of my mind is the
salvation of sinners and the glory of God. ^ly time is gone.
Good-bye. Bless you a thousand times.

Xewcastle-ox-Tyxe,
^ April 28. "55.

My dear Kate, my own true Love — Your very kind note
is just to hand. Bless you ; I do indeed thank you for all your
kind counsel and will once more try again. I have indeed this
week been low. I should not like to continue this work if I
am to be as I have been for the last 3 weeks. My mental ma-
chinery has been a source of great anxiety, and other things
have pressed upon me with a painful assiduity. However, it
is no use talking about it ; we will try again. . . .

I am at present more than ever uncertain as to any step
about the future. L' T ?ay anything to Conference about my-
self it will be to request a Circuit, but to leave it with them.
H I had more general knowledge, love for study and material
for the pulpit, I should not hesitate a moment, because all
fears about my health are removed ; but a consciousness of my
emptiness, my incapacity to sustain a position of such vast im-
portance, presses on me until it unfits my mind for anything.
A year's pause might remedy this to some extent.

As yet we have nothing done here : all looks discouraging,
and I dread Manchester. I have however started afresh in
the work of gathering knowledge, and hope to report pro-
ficiencv. I cannot but be surprised at the want of any aspir-
ing emotion so apparent in many of our ministers : they are

XV] MANY TROUBLES 239

nothing and seem content. I deplore this, and yet if I was
like them I should be very much happier !

May I, 1855.

My dearest axd most precious Love — May, that brings
sunny days, soft breezes, and opening flowers, comes in cold
and bleak with us. I was in hopes, especially for thy dear
sake, that we were about to have some calm and continued
summer weather. Perhaps, however, it may be finer with
you in the South than with us in the far North. I am all
alone — far away from almost any one who understands me
or can sympathize with me. And yet I am not unhappy. Oh,
that I could learn yet more fully than I have yet learned to
lean chiefly on God. Oh how much am I the creature of cir-
cumstances. Last night in preaching I was almost as much
shut up, // not quite so, as when you heard me the last time
at Brunswick Chapel. I felt right when I went to the Chapel,
familiar with my subject and desiring success, and praying
for it, too. The congregation was good, and all were well
prepared : but I failed. However, we had 23 very good cases
afterwards, several young nioi who promise great useful-
ness. . . .

Hood's Buildings, Windmill Hills,

Gateshead-on-Tyne,

May 2, '55.

My dearest and most precious Love — Thy long loving
letter is to hand this morning. Now do let me try and answer
it ; after the gentle chiding it contains I will try and do better.
The scrap you sent me I read, then burned; no answer to it;
I must let deeds speak and not words. I might truthfully have
signed yesterday's letter as you wish — / feel on the subject
as you do. I read the article on It zvill never do to be idle; it
is original, striking, and correct, and did me good. I am
working a little. Bless you ; for your sake I will persevere.

Yesterday was an industrious one ; went to chapel well pre-
pared to preach — a good and attentive congregation awaiting
me, and I again failed most decidedly, and yet we had some
precious cases of conversion. The work is very genuine and
satisfactory. I find the great dift'erence in the North is not, as
I was taught to expect, in the non-impressibihty of the people,
but in the formality and death-slumber of the professing Chris-
tians, and the hindrance to the spread of the salvation of the
Cross is in the influence of a cold, systematic theology and a
stiflf theoretical development of the truth. I am looking for a
successful meeting to-night. I am happier in my own soul,
more composed and trusting with regard to the future, than I
have been for some time. I hope I have started in the true
path of progress. ...

240 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

Gateshead,
May 4, 1855.

My dearest and most precious Love — How art thou?
Oh I have been thinking about thee much this last day or two.
I am better in health of body and mind and soul. Once more
I have to report that we finished up with a perfect triumph.
What can we say to it but bow and wonder and adore? Last
night the chapel was full. The prayer-meeting crowded —
densely crowded. Forty names were taken, many of them
most interesting cases, and there were numbers, vast numbers,
under very deep conviction ; and then in forming our estimate
of this work we must bear in mind that this is the North —
where the people are proverbially unimpressible, intelligent,
and difficult to move. That the church was in a deplorable low
state, so much so, nay more so. for many of the office-bearers
were absolutely opposed to my coming. Therefore, all these
difficulties have had to be met; prejudice and coldness to be
removed ; and it has been done, triumphantly done, and all com-
bine to say that they cannot remember a work like it in any
of the churches of the town. Wesleyans, Reformers, Primi-
tives, and New Connexion men have all worked together, knelt
at the same Communion-rail, and side by side fought the
common foe, and as the result 160 names have been taken.
What can we say to this but that it is the Lord's doing and
marvellous in our eyes? With facts like these before our
minds, retreat from this path seems impossible, and once more
bright visions of future increased usefulness are flitting before
my eyes. If the results here had been gained in twelve
months' labour I should have been hailed on every hand as a
most successful minister ; but because they have been gained
in a fortnight I know many will question and doubt; but I
cannot but see why they should not be as permanent as if
gathered in or brought about by a more tedious and lengthened
process. . . .

2^ Hyde Grove, Shakespeare Street,
Manchester,

May II, 1855.

]\Iy dearest, my precious Catherine — I intended writing
to you yesterday, but was occupied the earlier part of the day
in answering a letter of 8 pages received from a Unitarian
gentleman of Gateshead, who came to hear me preach there,
and took exception to being classed with infidels, etc., and pro-
nounced worthy of the same condemnation and exposed to the
same eternal woe. Several vexatious little circumstances pre-
vented me writing, or rather getting a letter posted, during the
after part of the day. I rather expected a line from you this
morning, looked anxiously for the postman, but^ he passed our
gate to my great disappointment. I should very much like

XV] MANY TROUBLES 241

to see you, and had you been- anywhere within reach, say 50
miles, this morning would certainly have found me by your
side or with your own dear self in my arms. It seemeth a
long, long time since I left London : I can hardly believe it is
only six zceeks.

My struggle here in Manchester is a lonesome one. I hardly
know how to estimate the work. I am looking onwards as
patiently as I can towards Sunday and next week. The re-
spectable connected with the Chapel come very little, and yet
we have had a few good cases, among others the two daughters
of the lady with whom I am staying: one the eldest, a beauti-
ful, blithe creature, the other young, about 14, but intelligent;
their father was a minister amongst us, and has been now some
two years in Heaven. The mother, of course, is much re-
joiced, and they all are very kind and thoughtful for my com-
fort. I think that, with one exception, Manchester would suit
us well as a residence, and for aught I know that may be no
hindrance at all. Of course we should have to live out of
town. The omnibuses are very nice ones, as large again as
those in London, and far more comfortable than a cab. You
could ride in them without being inconunoded, and if we could
find a nice home near one of our chapels — that is the diffi-
culty I refer to — then I think ^Manchester would suit us
well. But we shall see. I had rather take a Circuit for a
time, but the difficulties in that path increase ; invitations,
pressing and urgent ones, continue to reach me, and those who
at the commencement of the work appeared distant and sus-
picious are now inquiring for my services. ... I have seen a
tin-box that will do capitally to hold your bonnet when travel-
ling, and that and a portmanteau, I should think, would serve
you well. I think much about you and trust you are happy
and still improving in health. . . .

25 Hyde Grove, Shakespeare Street,
Manchester,

May 15, '55.

My dearest Kate — Bless thee, thy letter is just to hand.
I have to go away to Macclesfield to meet the preachers about
my next three weeks' arrangements. They are pulling me to
pieces — it is one heavy item I have to pay for my popularity.

I suppose we must be married, as you say, the week ending
the 1 6th ; but more of it in my next. We are getting on pretty
well. They want me to stay next week over, and the Presi-
dent wants me to go to York.

Do as you think best about everything. Get whatever you
want. I will write to-morrow. I am working hard. Am
reading a little. Making a sermon on Bring forth fruits meet
for repentance.

242 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH Lchap.

I hope you will improve in health now. I am engaged up to
Sunday 3rd. The postponement will suit me well, as it will
enable me to comply with one or two important and pressing
invitations.

25 Hyde Grove, Shakespeare Street,
Manchester,

22, '55.

My dearest Catherine — Bless you. I shall soon, all well,
change my address and call you my dearest Wife. It is aston-
ishing how of late that name has gathered unto it in my estima-
tion charms and sweetness which it lacked before. I intended
writing you a long letter, but shall not have time. I think if it
be that we cannot be married at Brunswick Chapel we will let
Mr. Thomas marry us at his own chapel. I should like it much
if it can be done without giving offence to Mr. C, seeing that
we have discussed the matter.

Write me per return how much black silk you will want for
a flounced dress and whether you would prefer that to a satinet
or satinture — I intend having a first-rate one. If I buy it
without your letter I shall get black silk and 16 yards.

I am very low spirited this morning. We are not getting
on very well — not near so well as I expected. How are you ?
Are you happy? Write me all particulars about yourself. I
am looking up ; have been praying for you. You need not
have any fear of my being over elated; I have almost as little
self-confidence as ever. I wish I had more, I should preach
far better. Look up, all will yet be well. I shall soon call
you fully mine, and we shall be happy.

25 Hyde Grove, Shakespeare Street,
Manchester,

May 24, '55.

My dearest Catherine — Your very kind letter came to
hand this morning. My head aches very bad indeed, and I am
very glad of a day or two's rest. You must not expect me to
say much ; in fact, I am tired of this mode of communication.
we seem so felicitous in misunderstanding one another. Just
by way of calming your fears I will say that I do not think that
there is the smallest danger of popularity making either fop
or fool of me. If I am not very much mistaken it has made
me a wiser and a soberer man. I think the former part of
your letter censorious and needlessly severe ; the latter, as I
say above, is as kind as usual and therefore acceptable.

I leave here to-morrow for Burslem. So your next must
be directed to me. care of Mr. Hawley. Waterloo Road,
Burslem, Staff'ordshire. I am annoyed with the letter of Mr.
Woodhouse relative to my essay ; send me the strictures en-
closed in your next. They asked me to write an essay on the

XV] MANY TROUBLES 243

characteristics of an Apostolic Ministry, and then find fault
because I have not made excuses for and drawn pictures of
the do-nothings of the present day. I shall write him a note
on the subject. Wait awhile and we will, if spared, try and
do something. Yes, we zvill. God help us to be one and to
labour for Him. What a poor magazine your letter is in. I
am literally ashamed of it as the organ of our denomination.
The revival movement shall have an organ, and if the Maga-
zine won't take it up some other newspaper shall.

We finished up pretty well last night. It has been a hard
struggle for rne, how hard no earthly being knows. I have
made many friends in Manchester, among others the Mr. Shut-
tleworth, once Editor of the Magazine, whose *' Birthday
Thoughts " are in the present one ; he was opposed to the
thing before he knew and heard me. None have applauded
me more sincerely and intelligently than Mr. Hulme. I expect
he will be president of the Conference.

You must excuse this scrawl. I have several more letters
to write, and I ought to be out of doors. Write me a line to-
morrow directed to Burslem. I am not sure whether I shall
get the black silk. Without flounces I don't like them, and I
don't want to cross your wish. . . .

P.S. — I wish I could come and see you to-day. I am satis-
fied all this gloom and mists would be dispersed. But it will
be over soon, and if spared all will be well.

Conference, Sheffield,
June I, '55.
My dearest and most precious Love — I hope you
received my letter posted from hence yesterday. I under-
stand that the Conference almost unanimously resolved that
I be devoted to my present sphere of labour throughout the
next year. I am to have iioo for the year and my travelling
expenses. This, of course, is an advance of £30 or £40 on
the young man's salary. My labours are to be under the direc-
tion of the Annual Conference. I think so far the matter
seems providential, and is to my mind satisfactory. The
preachers and friends are very cordial — and, bless you, I do
hope we shall be very happy. I am tolerably well in health,
and hope with a week or two's relaxation to be first-rate.
York, Chester, Ashton, and many other places are desiring
my services. I do not know all particulars, but I shall obtain
them and tell thee all things with my own lips on Saturday
week. I have told Mr. Bates that I shall spend the week prior
to our marriage at his house, if he will very kindly invite me.
I hope you are well ; do not go about at all while this weather
lasts. I have had to pay £5:5:0 for my Beneficent Fund
Subscription — but I suppose they are to give me £6:0:0 for

244 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

my last London service — so one will cover the other. I like
the appearance of the Conference much. The preachers and
laymen work well together. I heard the charge last night by
Dr. Crofts. I hope my essay is at least as good a thing as
that. Mr. Cooke is very cordial. I am going to dine with
him. I shall hear what he says about our afifairs. I have no
doubt all will be perfectly plain. I will enclose you what
passes between us after dinner. I am staying with Mr. Bates.
I am indulging fond hopes — I fear not but that we shall be
happy. I am sure I love you, and I need not say that I shall
do all that a loving and willing heart can prompt me to hush
thy every fear and make thee blissful and joyous.

Great Alfred Street, Nottingham,
J^^ne 5, '55.
My dearest and most precious Kate — Thy kind note is
just to hand. All well, Mr. Thomas shall marry us. I do not
know hardly how to write him on the subject. But I suppose
I must. I would much rather call. I have not been very high
spirited since the Conference, so perhaps my last note or two
have partaken of the colour of my feelings. Your last was
quite satisfactory or I should have said so. I quite feel as you
do with respect to the ceremony ; in fact, the whole afTair, and
most heartily wish it was over. But that soon will be. Time
flies most rapidly. I shall soon once more be sitting by your
side. I shall make no arrangements for the future, and should
we not have any family, and should your health permit it, we
will not encumber ourselves with a home. I have obtained
an address for apartments at Ryde, Isle of Wight. . . .

And now follows the last letter before the marriage:

Spalding,
June 8, '55.
My own darling Kate — Bless you, how soon once more
shall we meet again. Meet as we have never met before, with
different feelings and different prospects. That which has
been regarded as looming in the far-off distance now is very,
very near. You are to be mine. We are to be one. Yes,
one. My whole soul must lie open before your gaze, and it
will be. Yes ! it shall be. And thou art to be my guardian
watcher. And we are to commence our life together in one
united and, I trust, continued sacrifice, for God's glory and
the welfare of our fellowmen. And yet in it I trust we shall
be happy. Mutual forbearance, affection, heart-love, will do
all things, be a talisman which will turn all our domestic anx-
ieties and trials into bonds of love and cause of mutual joy.
You know me : I am fitful, very ; I mourn over it, I hate myself
on account of it. But there it is; a dark column in the inner

-^v] MANY TROUBLES

^45

life of my spirit. " You know it." Bless you ; I will try ;
but suppose I fail to make myself better, thou wilt bear with
me and I will try and be all that thou desirest. I pray for
help from on High. Oh yes, God will give it me. Nay, give
it us.

The reader will remember a reference in one of these
letters to what is called the Women's Question. The let-
ter of Catherine Mumford which provoked that reply is
happily preserved, and with this letter, illuminating in many
ways, the present chapter of our history may conclude.

From Catherine Mumford to William Booth.

April 9, '55.

My own dear Love — I am all alone and not equal to much
besides, so I will write a bit to thee, which generally makes me
forget loneliness and everything else for a time. I have been
thinking that I did not notice a little information in one of your
notes last week, although it gave me very great pleasure. I
refer to your defence of those two subjects not only dear to
my heart, but, in my estimation, of vast importance to the
world. ^ I am sure, had I been present, I should have re-
garded you with increased pride and affection, for there is
nothing so inspires my admiration as a noble stand for right,
in opposition to paltry prejudice and lordly tyranny. I admire
Mr. Thomas more for his noble nature than his splendid genius.
I cannot bear a time-serving, truth-sacrificing spirit. I would
not falsify my convictions on any subject to gain the plaudits
of a world, and proud shall I be if my husband proves himself
in this respect a man whom I can delight to honour. It is a
great pity that in the Church, at least, there should be so great
a need for this fearless defence of what, but for enslaving
prejudice and pitiable littleness, would at once commend itself
to every man's conscience ; but since it is so, God multiply the
unflinching defenders of principles and " rights " of all kinds.

I am thankful to my heart's core that you are a teetotaler;
so deep is my conviction of the righteousness of the principle
that nothing could buy my consent to your upholding and
countenancing the drinking customs of society. I believe that
God's deep curse is on them, and never till the Church repents,
and washes her hands of them, will she do much for the world.
The convinced, convicted multitudes of her members must
end the controversy by coming out on the side of right, or
mere worldlings will put them to shame (as they are doing)
and take the flag of this glorious conflict, and final victory, for
ever out of their hands. Oh that God may send some mighty-

1 Teetotalism and Women's Rights.

246 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

rushing moral influence to arouse them. I know you say
Amen, and it is no Httle gratification to me that you not only
sympathize with my views, but defend them; bless you, it is
sweet to see and feel alike, is it not?

If, on that other subject you mention, my views are right,
how delighted I should be for you to see as fully with me on it
too; you know I feel no less deeply on this subject, and per-
haps you think I take rather a prejudiced view of it ; but I have
searched the Word of God through and through, I have tried
to deal honestly with every passage on the subject, not for-
getting to pray for light to perceive and grace to submit to the
truth, however humiliating to my nature, but I solemnly assert
that the more I think and read on the subject, the more satis-
fied I become of the true and scriptural character of my own
views. I am ready to admit that in the majority of cases the
training of woman has made her man's inferior, as under the
degrading slavery of heathen lands she is inferior to her own
sex in Christian countries ; but that naturally she is in any re-
spect except physical strength and courage, inferior to man I
cannot see eause to believe, and I am sure no one can prove it
from the Word of God, and it is on this foundation that pro-
fessors of religion always try to establish it. Oh prejudice,
what will it not do ! I would not alter woman's domestic
position (when indeed it is scriptural) because God has plainly
fixed it; He has told her to obey her husband, and therefore
she ought to do so, if she profess to serve God ; her husband's
rule over her was part of the sentence for her disobedience,
which would, by the by, have been no curse at all if he had
ruled over her before, by dint of superiority — but God or-
dained her subjection as a punishment for sin, and therefore
I submit ; but I cannot believe that inferiority was the ground
of it ; if it had, it must have existed prior to the curse and
thus have nullified it.

Oh I believe that volumes of light will yet be shed on the
world on this subject; it will bear examination and abundantly
repay it. We want a few mighty and generous spirits to go
thoroughly into it, pen in hand ; and I believe that the time
is not far distant when God will raise up such ; but I believe
woman is destined to assume her true position, and exert her
proper influence by the special exertions and attainments of
her ozi'n sex; she has to struggle through mighty difficulties
too obvious to need mentioning, but they will eventually dwin-
dle before the spell of her developed and cultivated mind.
The heaving of society in America (the birthplace of so
much that is great and noble), though throwing up, as all such
movements do, much that is absurd and extravagant and which
/ no more approve than you, yet shows that principles are
working and enquiries awakening. May the Lord, even the

^] MANY TROUBLES 247

just and impartial one, overrule all for the true emancipation
of women from the swaddling-bands of prejudice, ignorance,
and custom, which, almost the world over, have so long de-
based and wronged her. In appealing thus to the Lord I am
deeply sincere, for I believe that one of the greatest boons to
the race would be woman's exaltation to her proper position
mentally and spiritually. Who can tell its consequences to
posterity? If what writers on physiology say be true, and
experience seems to render it unquestionable, what must be
the effects of neglect of mental culture, and the inculcation
of frivolous, servile, and self-degrading notions into the minds
of the mothers of humanity? Oh, what endears the Christian
religion to my heart is what it has done, and is destined to do,
for my own sex ; and that which excites my indignation be-
yond anything else is to hear its sacred precepts dragged for-
ward to favour degrading arguments.

Oh for a few more Adam Clarkes to dispel the ignorance of
the Church, then should we not hear very pigmies in Chris-
tianity reasoning against holy and intelligent women opening
their mouths for the Lord in the presence of the Church.
Whenever you have to argue with such, just direct them to
read the three following passages and Clarke's comment on
the two first: Exodus 15th chapter, 20-22 verses; Judges ist
chapter, from the 4th verse ; and 2nd Chronicles 34th chapter,
from the 21st verse. In the first he says the same word in
the original is used in reference to Moses and the other
prophets, and therefore Miriam was as truly inspired; and,
that she was chosen and constituted joint leader of the people,
we have the express Word of God for it by Micah, 4th chap-
ter, 4th verse; ''For I brought thee up out of the land of
Egypt, and / seyit before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam."
On the latter, Clarke says that Deborah seems to have been
supreme as well in civil matters as in spiritual. " She judged
Israel " — the same term as is used to denote the functions of
the regular judges — she appointed Barak as general of the
armies, as well as declared God's will to him, and Barak most
unhesitatingly recognized her authority. But read carefully
the whole account, as also that in the 34th chapter of 2nd
Chronicles, and say whether in any respect you can discover
any difference between the exercise of the prophetic power, or
the recognition of its reality and force, in these cases and
those of Isaiah or Jeremiah.

It is worthy of remark that there are no less than six
prophetesses mentioned in the Old Testament, one of whom
was unquestionably judge as well as prophet. And these are
not mentioned in a way which would lead one to suppose that
the inspired writer regarded them as anything very extraordi-
nary; they are simply introduced to our notice like the other

248 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

prophets. Now God having once spoken directly by zvoman,
and man having once recognized her divine commission, and
obeyed it, on what ground is Omnipotence to be restricted, or
woman's spiritual labours ignored ? Who shall dare say unto
the Lord " \Miat doest Thou?" when He ''pours out His
Spirit upon His handmaidens," or when it is poured out, shall
I render it null with impunity? If indeed there is in " Christ
Jesus neither male nor female," but in all touching His king-
dom " they are one," who shall dare thrust woman out of the
Church's operations, or presume to put my candle which God
has lighted under a bushel ? Why should the swaddling bands
of blind custom which in Wesley's days were so triumphantly
broken, and with such glorious results thrown to the moles
and bats, be again wrapped round the female disciples of the
Lord, as if the natural, and in some cases, distressing timidity
of woman's nature, were not sufficient barrier to her obeying
the dictates of the Spirit, whenever that Spirit calls her to any
public testimony for her Lord? Oh, it is cruel for the Church
to foster prejudice so unscriptural, and thus make the path
of usefulness the path of untold suffering. Let me advise
you, my Love, to get settled views on this subject and be able
to render a reason to every caviller, and then fearlessly incite
all whom you believe the Lord has fitted to help you in your
Master's work, male or female, Christ has given them no
single talent to be hid in a napkin, and yet oh what thousands
are wrapped up and buried, which used and improved would
yield *' some thirty, some sixty, yea and some an hundred
fold." If God has given her the ability, why should not
woman persuade the vacillating, instruct and console the peni-
tent, and pour out her soul in prayer for sinners? Will the
plea of bashfulness or custom excuse her to Him who has put
such honour upon her, as to deign to become her Son, in order
to redeem her race; will these pleas excuse her to Him who
last at the cross and first at the sepulchre was attended by
women who so far forgot bashfulness as to testify their love
for Him before a taunting rabble, and who so far overcame
custom that when all (even fellow-disciples) forsook Him and
fled, they remained faithful to the last and even then lingered
" afar off " loath to lose sight of an object so precious?

Oh blessed Jesus ! He is indeed " the woman's conquering
seed." He has taken the bitterest part of her curse " out of
the way, nailing it to his cross." In Him she rises to the
dignity of her nature. In Him her equality with her earthly
lord is realized, for " in Him there is neither male nor fe-
male," and while the outward semblance of her curse remains,
in Him it is nullified by love being made the law of marriage.
*' Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church, and
gave Himself for it." Who shall call subjection to such a

XV] MANY TROUBLES 249

husband a curse ? Truly '' He who was made a curse for us "
hath beautifully extracted the venom ; for what wife who
loves the Lord can feel it a burden to " reverence " a husband
thus like Himf — and glory to His name, while His death did
this, and His precepts are so tender and so easy, His example
is no less endearing. In her society He loved to spend His
hours of repose and holy retirement in the lovely little home
at Bethany. To her at the roadside well He made His only
positive avowal of His Messiahship, and set aside the tram-
mels of national custom to talk with her. For her He made
a way of escape from her merciless though no less guilty
accusers, and while sending them away conscience smitten,
to her He extended His tender mercy, " neither do / condemn
.thee: go, and sin no more."

He never slighted her, overlooked her, or cast a more severe
construction on sin in her than in ma7i; no, He treated her in
all respects the same. His las: affectionate solicitude, in the
midst of expiring agonies, was exercised for her, and, oh, best
of all, His rising salutation, the first view of His glorified body,
that pledge of His victory over her ancient enemy, was given
to her with a commission to go and publish to His disciples,
the fact of His resurrection. Methinks if some of our mod-
ern quibblers had been amongst them, they would have hesi-
tated to receive such tidings from her; but not so Peter and
John, they ran swiftly at her word, as if it had been a man's,
and " stooping down and looking in " realized the glorious
truths. Oh that many Marys may yet tell of His wonderful
salvation. But I must conclude. I had no idea of writing
so much when I began, but I do not regret it. I have long
wanted to put my thoughts on this subject on paper, and I
am sure thou wilt not value them the less because they are on
such a subject. I have not written so much to thee as for
thee, I want thee to feel as I do if you canst ; but if not be as
honest in thy opinions as I am, and I will honour thee for
them.

If you gain anything by what I have writ, I should praise
God on hearing it, otherwise I do not desire you to answer
this. I have written it in much weariness and I should be
pleased and gratified if thou wilt give it a serious reading.
Perhaps sometime with thy permission (for I am going to
promise to obey thee before I have any intention of entering
on such work) I may write something more extensive on this
subject, and on reading over this letter I perceive it would
under such circumstances be a help to me ; therefore I desire
thee to take special care of it, for I can only write thus in cer-
tain frames of mind. Bless you, I know you will give credit
for true patriotism, for you knozv nothing I have said is to be
interpreted personally. Alas ! I feel that / am far inferior to

250 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap, xv]

many of my oztm sex, and therefore am the last to claim
superiority, but such as I am I am thine in love's own bonds.

Catherine.

I have " written it for a memorial in a letter " instead of a
book.

CHAPTER XVI

MARRIAGE, HONEYMOON, AND THE THEOLOGY OF

REVIVALISM

1855

On the i6th June, 1855, William Booth and Catherine
Mumford, both of them being twenty-six years of age, were
married by the Rev. Dr. Thomas at the Stockwell New
Chapel in South London. Mr. Mumford was present at
this wedding and one of William Booth's sisters. No
other minister assisted Dr. Thomas, and there was no con-
gregation.

The honeymoon was spent at Ryde, in the Isle of Wight,
the bride and bridegroom occupying those comfortable
lodgings of which William Booth had heard a good account
in the north of England. One week was devoted to this
delicate foundation of married life, and then the Reverend
and Mrs. William Booth, of the Methodist New Connexion,
started off for a religious campaign in Guernsey.

It is time to say that these revivals, into which the
Booths threw themselves with an enthusiasm scarcely to
be matched by the earliest Christians, rose out of a theo-
logical ground which was then universally accepted by the
Church. Whether we may think that ground narrow or
false, it was the foundational theology of the period — a
ground, moreover, which no man could even reverently
criticize without the startling consequence of finding himself
numbered among the infidels. The Booths, standing on
this acknowledged ground, were perfectly logical in their
action ; those who stood on the same ground, and yet
contented themselves with a tepid discharge of formal duties,
were guilty of the disastrous offence which English people
are most ready to forgive, namely, an incredible lack of
imagination.

What was this theological ground universally acknowl-
edged by the Church? One can state it so mildly that it

251

2;2 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

-0-

may be accepted by the great body of orthodox Christians
even at this day ; it can be stated with such brutal realism
as might have startled even the flaming spirits of William
and Catherine Booth fifty years ago.

In its mildest form this theology taught that entrance
into Heaven could only be secured by faith in the Redemp-
tion of Christ ; that man was so inherently corrupt in his
nature that without the help of Almighty God he could do
nothing to please Him: and that until he bowed his sinful
will to the Divine Will, acknowledging Christ as his Saviour
and Redeemer, he stood in dreadful peril of eternal damna-
tion. In its more dogmatic form this theology taught that
every human creature born into the world was under sentence
of death, and that condemnation and wrath awaited those
who refused to acknowledge the death of Christ as at once a
consequence of their own personal guilt and an atonement
for the sins of the whole world. Hell was indubitably
regarded as the certain portion of all sinners, the just
portion, indeed, of all who rejected Christ; and Hell
was, also indubitably, pictured as a region of unspeakable
misery which would endure for everlasting.

It must strike every honest mind that a man w^ho
entertained this theology and truthfully believed its impli-
cations must have had a heart of stone or a quite dead
imagination to go quietly, peacefully, and contentedly
about his business. To eat a meal when thousands were
slipping into eternal Hell only a few^ yards from the table;
to go happily to rest when thousands more were hurling
themselves over the brink into those undying flames within
a walk of one's comfortable bed; to stand at the reading
desk or to mount the pulpit stairs with a written sermon
in one's cassock-pocket, while thousands upon thousands of
people remained outside the church doors satisfied with
their sins, blackened with iniquity, and condemned to an
unending agony of irremediable remorse — surely this was
to be illogical, incomprehensible, utterly unimaginative,
dead to every vestige of feeling.

Far more logical was the action of revivalists. They
not only professed the accepted theology of Christendom,
but they lived their lives as if it were the veritable truth

XVI] REVIVAL THEOLOGY 253

of the universe. They fought Satan as if they saw him
face to face; they struggled to drag the souls of men from
the edge of eternal torment; they seized the shoulders
of the sleepers and bade them wake and be saved; they
could not rest, nor find lasting pleasure in life, while thou-
sands of their fellow-creatures were sinking into everlast-
ing ruin ignorant of the means of obtaining everlasting
felicity; their w^hole existence was an agony to rouse the
torpid souls of a perishing world.

There is really nothing to excuse in the fervour and in-
citements of such men as William Booth if we remember
their honest convictions. On the other hand, the frigid
and decorous lives of their orthodox contemporaries, if we
consider their theological foundation, demand an apology
so subtle and tortuous that it might baffle even the cunning
of a Newman to give it any form of expression short of
the grotesque.

Sydney Smith's essay on '' Methodism," which diverted
readers of The Edinburgh Reinew and gave an elabo-
rate satisfaction to the erudite Establishment, makes no
mention whatever of this foundational teaching of the
Church. " The Methodists," he said, '' are always desirous
of making men more religious than it is possible, from the
constitution of human nature, to make them." Whether
he ever preached a sermon from the text, " Blessed are
they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness ; for
they shall he filled," or from the injunction, '' Be ye there-
fore perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is
perfect," we do not know and are not greatly concerned
to discover; but much would we give and to great pains
would we most willingly put ourselves to ascertain the pre-
cise condition of the delightful and witty Canon's state of
mind when reciting at public w^orship those pronouncements
of the Church which declare the everlasting damnation of
the wicked.

But the only serious question for the reader of this
historv concerns the honestv of the Booths. Did thev
really believe w^hat they taught? Did they conscientiously
and implicitly hold as the very truth of existence that
escape from Hell could only be secured by faith in the

254 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

Atonement of Christ? Were they passionate and whole-
hearted seekers of the lost, burningly, unselfishly set upon
the saving of souls, truthfully convinced that they held
the commission of Christ; or were they merely the mounte-
banks of religious history, charlatans out for gain and no-
toriety, detestable hypocrites teaching what they did not be-
lieve, living clean contrary to their profession, laughing up
their sleeves in secret at the victims of their cleverness?
" We are for common sense orthodoxv," said Svdnev Smith.
Wliat, then, were the Booths for ? — what was their share,
if any, in this rare conjunction of common sense and ortho-
dox religion?

The letters which have appeared in previous chapters
entirely answer any reasonable question on the head of
honesty. Xo unprejudiced person can read those remark-
able letters without convincing himself that perhaps truer
and more honest souls never lived than this obscure
^Methodist preacher and the woman who shared the burden
of his vocation. It would be impossible for any man how-
ever malicious to prove them dishonest. Honest they were
in heart and soul, too honest for their peace and com-
fort, too honest for their worldly prosperity. But, a more
difficult question remains to be answered. One asks
whether William Booth, William Booth particularly —
William Booth with his shrewd common sense and his ob-
stinate self-questionings, his doubts and scepticisms even
in the midst of the religious excitation which he himself
had brought about — whether he had honourably assured
himself that what he proclaimed so loudly and so con-
vincingly from the platform expressed the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth, of God's relation with
humanitv ?

The easiest answer to this question is supplied in letters
written by the man himself in later life. He acknowledged
that his outlook at this time was narrow; he confessed that
he was guilty of ignorance and of inexperience. But by
this he did not mean that he ever wished his early work
undone, or that he had deceived himself in the doing of it;
he meant that he had circumscribed his labours to religious
circles; that he had not realized the immense part played

^i] REVIVAL THEOLOGY

255

in human tragedy by ignorance and poverty and pardonable
frailty; that he had not sounded so deeply as he came to
sound with larger experience the boundless charity of God.
He was a man, as we can never tire of emphasizing, whose
mind developed and whose character ripened to the very
last. He was always in the act of growth. Therefore,
without personal bias of any kind, with an actual distaste
for the violence and excesses of revivalism, one must acquit
him of any degree of self-deception or any inclination to
shirk the ordeal of a searching analysis of his beliefs. He
believed, as his letters overwhelmingly prove, that any
temptation to desist from seeking the instant salvation of his
fellows, any inclination to modify his methods, any whisper-
ing doubt as to his future, his health, or his happiness, came
from the enemy of his soul. Faith in Satan w^as tremen-
dously real to him. He felt himself called by God; he knew
himself tempted in a hundred directions from a perfectly
pure response to that call; and those doubts and question-
ings, which his intellectual power was unable to face and
answer, he ascribed, naturally and logically, to the forces
of evil.

I believe him to have been as honest a man as ever
found himself governed by a religious conscience. I be-
lieve him to have been a man who made mistakes, who
was perhaps ignorant, who was often thoughtless, and who
was too easily satisfied that the Devil whispered every
objection that rose from the depths to the surface of his
consciousness ; further, I believe that he accustomed himself
to employ in the service of righteousness methods for which
his taste, if definitely challenged in later years, would have
expressed no approval, and of which his intellect, patiently
summoned to give judgment, would have offered a settled
condemnation ; but I am convinced that from the very first
to the very last the man's soul was wholesome and true,
that he acted from an absolute purity of motive, that he
was as selfless as any man in modern conditions of life can
ever hope to be in seeking the welfare and the salvation of
his fellow-creatures.

Revivalism can be presented to the judgment of men in
such a manner as to inspire only disgust and horror. Even

256 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

when fairly and justly presented it makes no powerful
appeal to contemporary imagination. Mankind has passed
away from the ancient thesis of a distant and an angered
God; theology, except in Rome, has ranged itself with
science and philosophy in a search for the truth of life;
Christology has created in the wistful heart of multitudes an
infinitely more beautiful idea of the Incarnation; men now
deeply, hopefully, and quietly believe that the Spirit of God
is associated with humanity in an evolution of being which
goes from transcendence to transcendence in an infinite cir-
cle of increasing existence; but with this newer and en-
larged theology, with this deeper and therefore more bound-
less faith, who that widely knows the world can truthfully
say that even now the hour of revivalism is past, that the
cry to the multitude, Awake out of sleep, is not still as
urgent and as divinely inspired as it was in the earliest days
of William and Catherine Booth?

This history will show, I think, that the revivalism of
the Booths in its first manifestations was at least justified
by the state of theological knowledge, and that in its later
and more humane activities it was, is still, and is likely
for many more years yet to be, entirely justified by the
condition of human society.

I shall not weary the reader with a laborious chronicle
of their early revivals; my purpose is to show, so far as
their own letters will supply the evidence, the human side
of these revivalists and the many difficulties of their social
history. I am more anxious to make their personalities
real and intimate to posterity than to establish the successes,
great or small, which accompanied their progress through
the cities of England. The work by which they will be
known down the centuries is not the work of their early
revivalism, but the establishment of the Salvation Army —
and that alone is an organization whose activity covers
so vast an area of the earth's surface that many volumes
would scarcely suffice to relate its history.

My purpose, then, is to supply in this place as faithful a
portrait as my materials and my powers will permit of the
man who came through Methodism and through itinerant
revivalism to the founding- of an entirely new bodv of

XVI] REVIVAL THEOLOGY 257

Christians, a body of Christians whose influence has already
left a permanent impression upon all the Churches and
nearly all the domestic politics of the world. I shall use the
history of the early revivalism only so far as it subserves this
chief purpose, so far as it helps us to see, to hear, and to
know the man William Booth. It is more necessary to
understand the spirit of that revivalism, to understand it,
and to sympathize with it in the manner we have already
suggested, than to learn that such a town was visited in such
a year, and that in the prayer-meeting so many came to the
penitent form, and so many were '' good cases." The con-
temporary reader, I think, will thank me for sparing him
all such troublesome details, and certainly the only judg-
ment that posterity will pass upon this book will concern
the vigour of the portrait it attempts to paint of a man
whose character will be of curious attraction as long as the
world is interested in the history of religion.

The revivalism of W^illiam Booth proceeded from the
depths of his own soul as well as from his theological con-
victions. He was a man sharply conscious of his own
faults, plagued by temptations of body and mind, the un-
happy victim of a morbid infirmity. So far as the current
theology confirmed his settled opinion that every ill wish
which visited his mind came from Satan, the adversary of
souls, so far theology influenced his conduct. But it was
really this presence in himself, this continual companionship,
of a nature inferior to that higher nature of which he was
conscious in moods of religious exaltation; the perpetual
haunting, the unlifting pressure of an evil spirit antago-
nistic to his peace; the breath upon his cheek, the whisper
in his ear, the guidance at his elbow, the flame and fire
perpetually within his blood of a demon plotting the eternal
ruin of his soul — it was this root of evil in himself, and
not theology, which drove him first upon his knees and
then into the streets as a preacher of salvation.

Nothing was more certain to him than the existence of
Satan — the proof thereof tortured his own heart. So evil
did he feel himself to be that his thought was not in the
least staggered by the punishment of eternal Hell. So
profoundly conscious was he in moments of religious peace

258 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

of a relief from this inner torment that he could believe
it came only from the mercy of God, a gift of the Son who
had died to save his soul from death. Thus, so far as
theology confirmed his experience, he was a theologian ;
but it was out of his own travail of soul that he fashioned
his religion ; and religion for him, from first to last, was a
matter of the most personal and piercing experience. He
feared and hated the Devil; he adored the Son of God,
who had given him the victory over sin. Saturated through
and through, penetrated and interpenetrated by this sense
of an overwhelming gratitude to Christ; conscious, also,
in himself of the most pervasive and sufficing happiness in
his union with God, what could he do but go to those in
darkness and ignorance, proclaiming with a vociferation,
never mind how loud and alarming, the good news of a
free and perfect salvation?

In an account he has given us of one of his earliest
sermons — that under which the daughter of his tutor, Dr.
Cooke, was converted — we see with perfect clearness the
simple character of his theology at this time — he was
then 22 — and also the driving force of personal experience
at the back of his preaching :

I described a wreck on the ocean, with the affrighted people
clinging to the masts between life and death, waving a flag of
distress to those on shore, and, in response, the life-boat going
off to the rescue. ... I reminded my hearers that they had
suffered shipwreck on the ocean of time through their sins and
rebellion ; that they were sinking down to destruction, but
that if they would only hoist the signal of distress Jesus Christ
would send off the life-boat to their rescue. Then, jumping on
the seat at the back of the pulpit, I waved my pocket-handker-
chief round and round my head to represent the signal of dis-
tress I wanted them to hoist.

One's first instinct is to shudder. Without being super-
cilious or hypersensitive one may justly shrink from the
contemplation of this violent preacher with his waving
handkerchief. But to be perfectly just, one must ask
whether the current theology, the theology everywhere ac-
cepted, proclaimed, and even used as a menace to man-
kind, did not vindicate that leap to the seat at the back
of the pulpit, did not justify the waving of that pocket-

x^'I] REVIVAL THEOLOGY 259

handkerchief round the preacher's head? Is it true that
milHons of souls are shipwrecked, are sinking down to
destruction — everlasting destruction? Is it true that they
have only to cry to the Saviour of the world to be lifted
out of the dark waters? Most important of all, is it true
that unless they do so call for mercy and forgiveness, the
undying worm and the unquenchable flame will feed upon
their tortured souls for evermore? If this be so, if this
is indeed the teaching of the Church, can any method be
indecorous, any tone too strident, any gesture too violent,
any antic too shocking and startling, that rouses even one
perishing soul to escape a calamity so unthinkable as re-
morse and agony prolonged throughout the ages of eternity?
Again, one must in fairness contend that the perfectly
polite and unruffled seemliness of the orthodox, who cherish
this theology as the truth of God, is a matter not only inde-
fensible to casuistry but repellent to the most primitive in-
stincts of humanity.

This sermon of the waving handkerchief is important
because it helps one to understand the crude theology of
William Booth at the beginning of his career, and to see
how real was the experience from which he drew this violent
illustration. He clearly held that every soul born into
human life was in peril of everlasting destruction; he be-
lieved that every living soul, by its sins and rebellion,
merited destruction; that destruction must infallibly be its
lot but for the Atonement of Christ; and there his theology
ended and his humanity began. No intellectual test was
asked, no adherence was demanded to a string of self-
contradicting formulae ; all that was needed even of the very
worst was a cry from the heart of their own helplessness for
the mercy and forgiveness of an Infinite Christ. But there
was something more, he tested the reality of that cry. He
did not tell these troubled and affrighted souls that they had
only to give up their sins, join a church, and go regularly
to the public worship of God in order to be certain of an
angel's destiny in Paradise; he told them that they must
be born again; that they themselves at the very centre of
their being must suffer a will change so utter, a transforma-
tion so complete, a conversion so unerring, that the very

26o THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

face of life should appear to them for evermore altered and
transfigured. The cry was their part — and they could do
no more than cry; the change was the miracle of God. If
their cry came very truly from the grief of a broken heart,
from the bitter knowledge that of themselves they could
do nothing to save themselves from judgment and destruc-
tion; then, of a surety, the miracle would descend swiftly to
their relief. From the very first he preached this essential
need of conversion, and never once did he make the forgive-
ness of God to depend either upon the easiness of a life of
repentance or the difficulty of a theological proposition.
He made it hard for the sinner, but only hard for his heart
where it was a greater hardness that alone stood in the way
of divine mercy.

This theology of William Booth was not greatly modified
by experience; in later life, with a knowledge of the human
heart probably unrivalled, he saw the same teaching of
this old theology with an infinitely wider vision; but it
must be confessed that he remained to the very end of
his days a most intractable Philistine as regards the entire
region of the intellect. What was merely a loose intuition
in this respect during youth became in age a settled con-
viction. He detested the arrogance of dogmatic science.
In the impatience of his sorrow for the oppressed he con-
sidered literature and the fine arts as the mere playthings
of a childish humanity. He turned his back on philosophy,
as being often a trick of the Devil to catch mankind with
the delusions of the reason. He was born a provincial,
and he remained a provincial. He was not born a Hebraist,
but he made himself the most uncompromising Hebraist of
his time. He must always be judged as a man who, for
the sake of Christ, denied his period and lived without en-
thusiasm for human inquiry.

When we consider these things, remembering at the
same time that he held the generally accepted theology of
his day, we shall more easily sympathize with the spirit
of his revivalism. He knew little or nothing of textual
criticism, nothing of historical criticism, nothing of German
theology; nothing of psychology, nothing of philosophy,
nothing of physical science. He knew nothing of archi-

XVI] REVIVAL THEOLOGY 261

tecture, nothing of painting, and nothing of classical music.
Furthermore, at this period of his career he knew very
little indeed of life; was acquainted, indeed, only with the
dissenting aspect of the commonwealth, \vas in touch only
with the outermost suburbs of human society. When he
married Catherine Mumford he was an ill-educated pastor
of a section of the Methodist body, a man only remarkable
for the intensity of his feelings, the honesty of his nature,
and the power of his oratory. But the reader of his let-
ters must already have perceived that while he was this,
and while on the surface he was nothing more, there was
in the depths of his rough, wilful, and untutored being a
gnawing hunger and a consuming thirst for sanctification,
a great struggle for spiritual perfection, and a dogged,
obstinate, unconquerable passion to do the will of God
against the obstruction of Hell itself.

Again and again throughout his letters there is the
same foreshadowing of an ultimate immortality that exists,
calmly and quietly, in the most perfect and imperishable
of Shakespeare's sonnets — a cry, as it were, from the dark
blackness of a soul overshadowed by the powers of evil and
wretched with poverty, ignorance, and a will pulling con-
trary to the divine, a cry that somewhere, somehow, and
somewhen he will veritably strike an immortal blow for God
and his fellow-men. It is this conviction of a destiny, this
heroic faith in a high calling on the part of a man hampered
by physical w^eakness and hindered on every hand by au-
thority and indifference, which most interests us in William
Booth as a revivalist, helping us to maintain our sympathy,
and to expect a greater man. First to his youthful friends
in Nottingham, and afterwards with a much greater in-
tensity and a far more persistent reiteration to Catherine
Mumford, he confided this feeling within himself of a power
to do something for the salvation of man which should add
fresh glory to religion. His friends believed in him, and
Catherine Mumford, warning him against ambition, be-
lieved in him too. After long years of wandering in the
wilderness he was to enter the promised land and to justify
this faith in his destiny.

CHAPTER XVII

THE HAPPINESS OF A YOUNG MARRIED COUPLE

1855-1856

So great had been the success of WilHam Booth's various
missions that the Annual Conference of the New Connexion,
which was held a little time before his marriage, freed him
from his circuit in London, and appointed him to the work
of roving evangelist, " to give the various circuits an op-
portunity of having his services during the coming year."

In this way the young married couple were destined to
spend some considerable time of their life without the
comfort and convenience of a home. As early as August
in that year of 1855 — owing chiefly to Catherine's illness
— they were separated, W^illiam Booth writing from York
to his '' precious wife," who was with her parents in Lon-
don: '' I feel as though a part of myself were wanting,'"'
he says to her; adding, ''How often during my journey
have I taken my eyes from off the book I was reading to
think about you — yes, to think tenderly about you, about
our future and our home."

Catherine felt this parting keenly, and tells him how it
was almost intolerable, so that she even had thoughts of
starting off, in spite of her illness, to join him again:

. . . the fact of your being gone beyond my reach, the possi-
bility of something happening before we could meet again, the
possible shortness of the time we may have to spend together,
and such like thoughts, would start up, making rebellious na-
ture rise and swell and scorn all restraints of reason, phi-
losophy, or religion.

She signs herself on this occasion, '' Remember me al-
ways as your own faithful, loving, joyful little wife."

When they met again, Catherine wrote to her parents

describing her happiness, and exclaiming, '' He is kinder

and more tender than ever, and is very, very glad I came.

Bless him ! He is worth a huslicl of the ordinary sort."

262

[CHAP. XVII] YOUNG MARRIED LIFE 263

Tender as he was, and full of sympathy for her con-
tinued suffering, William Booth could not drag himself
from his work to nurse his sick wife. Very soon after this
reunion they were parted again, she remaining at Hull and
he going to Caistor as an evangelist. Her letters to her
parents furnish a second-hand report of his triumphs and
declare the sorrows of her heart in this enforced loneliness.
" I would not be a voluntary exile from my beloved hus-
band, even for a week."

We are to have apartments at Sheffield. You cannot think
with what joy I anticipate being to ourselves once more. . . .
For though I get literally oppressed with kindness, I must say
I would prefer a home, where we could sit down together at
our own little table, myself the mistress and my husband
the only guest. . . . My precious William is all I desire, and
without this what would the most splendid home be but a
glittering bauble? Then, too, by living in different families
and places, I have much room for observation and reflection
on various phases of life and character which I hope will bene-
fit my mind and increase my knowledge. . . .

A reference to her father, which follows, needs the par-
enthetical explanation that Mr. Mumford was suffering
commercial reverses, and that with these financial anxieties
he was once more sinking into a condition of indifference to
religion — the ex-lay preacher crushed quite out of existence
by the pressing failure of the coach-builder :

Tell father that he must not wait for a change of circuynr-
stances before he begins to serve God, but seek first the King-
dom of Heaven. ... I wish he could be introduced into such
a revival as that at Hull. God is doing great and marvellous
things there.

He is bringing to His fold

Rich and poor and young and old.

Out of his scanty earnings William Booth, the impulsive
and headlong evangelist, found means to help his im-
pecunious father-in-law. " Herewith," he wrote from
Sheffield, in September, 1855, "you have P.O. for two
pounds, made payable to John Mumford, at the General
Post Office." He is evidently looking about him for some
chance of helping this unfortunate father-in-law to make

264 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

a fresh start. " I am anxious you should keep your spirits
and make an effort by and by. I think that a large town
something like Sheffield would be better than the Potteries,
but perhaps I am not the best judge." He expresses him-
self as confident of Mr. Mumford's " ability and success "
if once he could get a fair start. On the same sheet Cath-
erine writes to her father :

I quite agree with you in thinking yourself well adapted for
an Auctioneer, and I have faith to believe you will yet get into
business and do zvcll; keep your spirits up and don't conclude
that because you cannot get away just now you must neces-
sarily stay where you are all the Winter. ... I hope the en-
closed order will be sufficient ; we intended sending another
pound, but William has not written to the Committee for
money, and he runs rather short just now; but if you zvant
more, send word, as he can write in a couple of days and will
with pleasure send you some.

After a reference to her husband's success, telling how
his name is " posted on the walls in monster bills," she
addresses herself to her mother:

I often wish I could come and see you. I should like to
have a little private conversation, my beloved mother. I am
very sorry you have been so unfortunate in your search after
apartments ; nevertheless, I think there is a kind providence
watching over you, and I believe all will turn out right in the
end. Don't be harassed about the rent ; when you have done
what you can, I am sure William will help you out ; he feels
more with you and manifests more interest in your welfare
than ever I expected he would ; but it is only one of the juany
things in which he has exceeded my expectation. Bless him,
I have only one fear, and that is that he will wear himself out
prematurely. . . .

In another of her letters, Catherine Booth tells her
mother that a composition of hers, " On the training of
young converts," which has already appeared in the New
Connexion Magazine, was now published in the Canadian
Christian Witness, " so it has found an audience on the
other side of the Atlantic." She then says, " I have been
reading a very good work on Homoeopathy which has re-
moved my last difficulty on the subject, and if I should
be ill I should like a homoeopathic doctor." But she is

XVII] YOUNG MARRIED LIFE 265

not entirely occupied with chapel-going, writing for the
New Connexion Press, and studying books of medicine;
she has her wardrobe to think about :

I shall soon begin to feel the cold in travelling and shall
want my merino dress, etc., etc. You will have to send us a
parcel before we leave Sheffield, but I will send a list of what
v\-e want next week. . . . Let Letty unpick the skirt of my
merino dress and wash it nicely for me (body as well) — if
you have not opportunity to make the skirt up again you must
send it undone, and I must get it done at Leeds. I shall want
you to send likewise that old black cloth cloak to make me a
loose jacket to wear under my shawl when travelling. Will
you look at William's best coat? I hope the moths are not in
reach of it.

After bidding her mother look in the second drawer and
send word as to what flannel underclothing the Rev. Wil-
liam Booth possesses which would be worth sending, she
winds up w^ith the suggestion that Mrs. Mumford should
advertise for a good lodger, saying, " you w^ould soon save
a little to serve as capital for father at the beginning."

In one of her letters written from Sheffield on October 5,
and addressed to " My very dear Parents,'' occurs a signifi-
cant sentence : '' I enclose a few lines solely on personal
matters, i.e. relating exclusively to myself, w^hich I wish
mother only to see." Later in the same letter:

The place we have been to to-day is one of the most splendid
houses I ever visited, and has a very kind and sympathetic
lady for its mistress. ... I like her much ; she will prove a
valuable friend to me while here. She is within a fortnight of
her confinement, so she can sympathize with me fully. I feel
this to be a special boon just now, because though in the
house where we are staying I have everything else I want, I
have no sympathy — simply because it forms no part of the
nature of my hostess — which you know is a great desidera-
tum with me. But I have everything in my precious husband
which makes other things insignificant ; otherwise I should
soon be in London again with my own dear mother.

In conclusion, *' W^illiam encloses ten shillings' worth
of letter stamps which I presume father can easily get cash
for amongst his city friends; it is for you to defray your

266 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

expenses in going to the Crystal Palace; now remember!
that is what it is sent for; we both wish you to go."

But William Booth not only thinks of sending his poor
dejected mother-in-law for a recuperative trip to the Crystal
Palace, denying himself for this purpose, but becomes every
day more tender, more kind, more loving, to his sick wife.
Himself an invalid, and all but prostrate after every fresh
exertion in the pulpit, he is Catherine's constant nurse and
faithful servant. He rises at all hours of the night to give
her nourishment and to tend the fire. He is never too tired
to comfort her. She tells her parents of this increasing love,
stopping in the midst of her news to say that William has
just entered the room " exhausting his vocabulary of kind
words and tender epithets," and cries out from a heart over-
flowing with gratitude, " Whence to me such waste of love? "

One cannot read these old and faded letters without
perceiving a change both in William and Catherine Booth.
On her part, she is no longer the writer of the love-letters,
a woman so obsessed by religion that her humanity scarcely
appears there, so mindful of God that she can hardly write
one letter to her lover without a reproach, an admonishment,
a warning, or a cry for deeper spirituality; she is now,
with an even quickened sense of religion, the adoring wife
and the expectant mother, full of concern for domestic
trifles which are really of immense concern, and happy,
contented, ravished by a wonderful love. And he, for his
part, is no longer tortured about his soul or fearful of
ambition. He is overflowing with love, he is surer of his
mission, he is swept forward by an unmistakable enthu-
siasm. Nothing is too humble for him to do in the lodgings
that form their home, no service is too great or too small
for him to render to his wife. It is as if in their love they
had found the solution of their religious difflculties, as if
deep acquaintance with each other had solved the problems
of their separate personalities.

Certainly William Booth had never preached with greater
effect. This mission in Sheffield was perhaps his first
whirlwind triumph. The chapels were so full that the
stairs of the pulpits were crowded and hundreds stood at
the doors. Conversions occurred among people of all

xvn] YOUNG MARRIED LIFE 267

classes. He was besought to go to other chapels in the
neighbourhood. The church to which he belonged seems to
have realized that a new Wesley had arisen in their midst.
And it is interesting to discover that Catherine Booth's
anxiety for his future, and her criticisms of his dangers,
came to an end at this period :

We had a wonderful day at the chapel yesterday, a tre-
mendous crozi'd jammed together like sheep in a pen, and one
of the mightiest sermons at night I ever listened to, from
" Will a man rob God ? Yet ye have robbed Me ! "... I be-
lieve that if God spares him, and he is faithful to his trust,
his usefulness will be untold, and beyond our capacity to esti-
mate. He is becoming more and more effective every day,
and God seems to be preparing him in his own soul for greater
things yet.

We do indeed (she writes) find our earthly heaven in each
other. ... I never knew him in a more spiritual and devo-
tional condition of mind. His character daily rises in my
esteem and admiration. . . . He often tells me he could not
have believed he should ever have loved a being as he loves me.

After the strain of the mission in Sheffield, the Booths
went to Chatsworth for a brief rest before making a fresh
onslaught at Dewsbury. Old Mrs. Booth had come to
them, and Catherine expresses pleasure at this meeting.
" She is a very nice-looking old lady, and of a very sweet
and amiable spirit." The party was a pleasant one in every
way, for old Mrs. Booth — sweetened by age — could now
enjoy the popularity attained by her only son, the young
Mrs. Booth was no longer anxious about her husband's
future, and William Booth himself was able to rest for a
few days from incessant preaching. The letters are full of
rather guide-book descriptions of Chatsworth, with only an
occasional deviation into moral reflection. " The old
Duke," wrote Catherine, '' ought to be a happy man, if
worldly possessions can give felicity. But alas ! we know
they cannot. And, according to all accounts, he is one of
those to whom they have failed to impart it." She also
tells her mother that Sir Joseph Paxton's house, " quite a
gentleman's seat," is near the lodge which is kept by one
'' who still works as a plodding gardener." Then she says,
" They both came on to the estate together, and at equal

268 THE LIFE OF GENEIL\L BOOTH [chap.

wages, which were very low. And now one is ' Sir Joseph/
known all over the world, while the other is still but keeper
of the Lodge."

This holiday gives us a picture of the revivalist taking
his ease in the country. We learn that he was enchanted
by the beauty of Derbyshire, that he walked vigorously,
and that he was so happy and exhilarated that he saluted
people encountered on the road. Mrs. Booth relates
how '' the dark frowning cliffs on one hand, the splendid
autumnal tints of rich foliage on the other, and the ever-
varying views of hill and dale . . . tinged with glory from
a radiant sky, filled us with unutterable emotions of admira-
tion, exhilaration, and joy." We learn, too, that when she
had walked as far as her strength could carry her, William
Booth w^ould leave her to rest and plunge farther up the
dale with all the enthusiasm of a Hazlitt. On one of those
occasions, Mrs. Booth waited '' at a very ancient and comi-
cal kind of inn," where she enjoyed " a very cosy and to me
amusing chat in rich Derbyshire brogue with an old man
over his pipe and mug of ale."

No sooner did this delightful holiday come to an end
than Mrs. Booth was attacked by a severe inflammation of
the lungs. They were at Dewsbury, and her husband was
once more called upon to bear the equally exhausting parts
of revivalist and sick nurse. We have the official records of
astonishing success in the pulpit, and eloquent testimonies
from Mrs. Booth in her letters home to his extraordinary
tenderness and loving-kindness at the bedside.

In announcing to her parents that the itinerary of this
revivalism was carrying them to Leeds, Mrs. Booth ex-
presses an opinion which gives one an amusing view of her
vigorous character:

I believe we are to have a very nice home, where there are no
children, quite a recommendation, seeing how they are usually
trained ! I hope if I have not both sense and grace to train
mine so that they shall not be a nuisance to everybody about
them, that God will in mercy take them to Heaven in infancy.

From the struggle and success of the Dewsbury Revival
they went to Leeds, arriving there in December, 1855, and

xN'ii] YOUNG MARRIED LIFE 269

finding arrangements so bad that William Booth blazed out
with indignation and wrath. He refused at first to co-
operate with the plans prepared for him, and '' it took the
preacher — Mr. Crampton — till midnight to persuade
him." We shall have something to say in the next chap-
ter of William Booth's stubbornness and that strain of
acerbity in his nature which perplexed so many people who
came upon him for the first time in moments when, dis-
tracted by care and anxieties, he was by no means tractable
or even polite ; but in this place it is enough to say that he
had real cause for his annoyance, and that it was entirely on
unselfish grounds that he raised his objection.

The truth is, officialdom could never handle a man of this
temperament. Officialdom exists in a system; officialdom
has its own dignity to consider; officialdom is mediocrity
in purple. William Booth was a genius and a fanatic; he
would have broken with officialdom from the very first but
for a curious weakness in his temperament which preyed
upon the force and energy of his individual powers and led
him, directly he began to reflect, to lean upon authority.
He experienced those baffling alternations, those swift and
torturing transitions, which plunge the soul from the heights
of confidence into the depths of self-distrust. At one
moment he felt himself able to remove mountains, and at
the next afraid to raise his own head. It will be seen that
but for Mrs. Booth this weakness, this rather amiable
modesty of self-distrust, might have kept him in the shafts
of officialdom to the end of his life.

It was at Leeds that William Booth first manifested a
distaste for what is called society. His popularity was
embarrassing, his success as a revivalist amazing, and all
the accounts of that time show him as a fiery preacher not
only able to crowd and pack large buildings with a breath-
less audience, not only able to sway the emotions of enor-
mous congregations, but able permanently to change the
lives of sinful men. But he was no hero of drawing-room
and parlour. " The people would pull him to pieces to
visit them," writes Mrs. Booth; '' but he cannot accept one
invitation without accepting others, and, besides, he wants
retirement. Thus one of my hidden fears about the future

270 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

is dissipated, viz., that he would love company, and lose
his relish for home and domestic joys."

These hidden fears which anxious women conceal from
the husbands to whom they are mothers as well as wives,
were real and serious fears in the case of Mrs. Booth. She
feared popularity, she feared social success, and she feared
insincerity. In spite of the devotion he showed her, in spite
of his loving-kindness in her sick-room, and in spite of the
spiritual impression his preaching made upon her critical
mind, she was haunted by the doubt that popularity might
turn his head, that social flattery might tempt him from the
hard and narrow way of the enthusiast, that the exhaustion
of revivalism might lead him into the destructive habits of
formalism. It is, perhaps, the noblest tribute to his char-
acter that he dissipated, one by one, these hidden fears of
his anxious and vigilant wife. His critics were numerous,
and he made hundreds of enemies; but not one of those
critics watched him so narrowly or penetrated so deeply
into the recesses of his character as the wife whose hidden
fears were born of love, and who desired his salvation with
all the energy of her remarkable character.

She writes to her parents of the final triumph at Leeds :
" My precious William excelled himself, and electrified the
people. You would indeed have participated in my joy
and pride could you have heard and seen what I did."
And then he enters the room, reads her letter, snatches it
from her, and writes : '' I just want to say that the very
same night she gave me a curtain lecture on my block-
headism, stupidity, etc., and lo. she writes to you after this
fashion. However, she is a precious, increasingly precious
treasure to me, despite the occasional dressing-down that
I come in for." And the letter concludes in her hand, " I
must say in self-defence that it was not about the speech
or anything important that the said curtain lecture was
given, but only on a point which in no way invalidates my
eulogy."

The coming of the first baby was no longer an inspiration
for theological and educational discourse. Catherine Booth
is now concerned onlv with the little clothes which she
commissions her mother to get made for her, issuing mi-

xTii] YOUNG MARRIED LIFE 271

nutest commands in the matter of style and trimming. She
has a great longing for her mother, and writes from
wretched lodgings, "' there is no nurse like a mother, how-
ever kind, except a husband." Again and again she tells
of William's watchfulness, tenderness,, and patience. She
falls ill with a very bad cough, and refuses a doctor be-
cause she fears bleeding and blistering; William pulls her
through with a book on homoeopathy and a medicine chest.
In January she is assailed with terrible doubts as to whether
the child is living; she fancies that she detects a strange
difference in herself since she was taken ill with the cough.
But she has moments of happiness and delight, free from
all anxiety and full of confidence — this expectant mother,
this delicate and impecunious girl living in provincial
lodgings.

I have made a skirt of Scotch woollen plaid (she writes to
her mother), which looks very nice. You will remember these
plaids are favourites with Wm. ; he often tells me how beauti-
ful (!) I look, and says he wishes you could see me; and I do
think I look better than ever I can remember doing ; my
countenance has quite lost the haggard expression it used to
wear, and I generally have a little colour, so you see all this
happiness is not fruitless.

But a sudden terror seizes her early in 1856. What if
the child is born prematurely !

I am constantly meeting with someone who did not go their
time of the first child ; and it makes me anxious to be ready ;
for I find it is a very common thing, tho' I hope it won't
happen to inc. I should hate it! (the word Jiate is underlined
vigorously three times) but I should get a doctor's certificate to
say it was premature.

They were now living in 3 Gerrard Street, Hapwood
Lane, Halifax, and from this address ]Mrs. Booth writes to
her parents on February 11, 1856 :

. . . I am not very well to-day, I have been out marketing
this morning, and of course I have many little things to attend
to in my new house, but I like it very much and never was
happier, it will however make a great difference to us in money
matters being on our own expenses in housekeeping. I have
wished many and many a time that my dearest mother could

272 THE LIFE OF GENER.\L BOOTH [chap.

come in and see me every now and then, and I should not be
surprised if we send for you in a hurry some day before we
leave here. ... I should like you to send the parcel as soon
as you can now as I want to get everything ready. . . . Send
the rose ointment you made for me, and the marking ink out
of Wm.'s dressing case, also the small soft brush out of the
case.

Five days later she writes :

My precious Mother — The parcel came to hand this
morning while Wm. was out, I was not long in opening it, and
while I turned over its contents I alternately laughed and
cried, the style of the little gowns far exceeds my expectations,
they are beautifully done — I am sure they must have tried
your poor eyes sadly. If you joined the insertion yourself,
you are cleverer than I gave you credit for, they are really
very nice. I have only one regret respecting them and that
is that the material is not somewhat better; on comparing it
with some corded muslin I bought at ^ per yard, I find it
much coarser, but perhaps it will wear no worse. I like the
little tucked waists of the longcloth ones very much ; Xurse
says they are too good for night, and advises me to make a
couple quite plain to sleep in, which I think I shall. I have
not bought stuff for any frocks yet, and Xurse says since
these are so nice I shall want but one for a best, so I shall not
trouble about any more, and being as I am not going to make
any more I should like to insert a couple of rows of insertion
with a tuck between in the skirt of the best you sent, I mean
the one with the jacket body, and insertion in the sleeves; can
you get me some insertion like it? I have measured it round,
it will take 4 yards and a half to go twice round, if you can
get it like it, do so, and then you can either send it in a letter
or bring it with you. The caps are little ducks. I am only
afraid they have injured your eyes in doing them. . . .

William Booth encloses a letter of his own:

My dear Parents — Your parcel has just come to hand and
with it both wife and self are delighted. ^Mother has been
very industrious, and has astonished us both with these speci-
mens of her ingenuity and skill. I write to convey to you our
united thanks, and most heartily do I join you in the hope that
our dear Catherine may be safely brought through the hour of
trial and that these little garments may be worn by some little
stranger who will ultimately prove a source of gladness and
comfort to us all.

With regard to ]\Iamma coming here, there is but one thing

XVII] YOUNG MARRIED LIFE 273

that causes us for a single moment to hesitate and that is the
having to part with her lodgers. . . . We are anxious for her
to be with us at the time the event occurs — but we do not
want her on that account to suffer loss. Nurse is a very sen-
sible woman, and I should think rather skilful in these under-
takings.

Their first child, William Bramwell Booth, was born on
March 8, 1856. The father records this event in a cheerful
letter to his wife's parents :

It is with feelings of unutterable gratitude and joy that I
have to inform you that at half-past eight last night my dearest
Kate presented me with a healthy and beautiful son. The
baby is a plump, round-faced, dark-complexioned, black-pated
little fellow. A real beauty.

This birth began for William and Catherine Booth as
difficult a family life as can well be imagined. They were
poor ; they had no home ; their future was always threatened
with disaster; and the manner of their lives was the very
last one would have thought compatible with domestic hap-
piness and family affection. Further than this, William
Booth was delicate, Catherine Booth was almost a com-
plete invalid. They went like gipsies from town to town,
living in lodgings, and plunging themselves at every fresh
adventure into the violence and excitements of religious
revivalism. What the science of eugenics would have to
say of such parents, and what medical science would have
to say of their methods of living, one can imagine very
easily ; and yet, these parents gave to the world — not only
to their own country, but to the whole world — a race of
men and women sufficiently remarkable to exercise a power-
ful influence for good on millions of human beings. Mrs.
Booth was a severe mother, William Booth was by no
means a sentimental father, and yet, in the midst of their
distracted and laborious life, they were able to watch over
their children so successfully that thev not only trained them
spiritually, morally, and intellectually, but won their ad-
miration and affection.

CHAPTER XVIII

WHICH TELLS OF A THORN IN THE FLESH, SECTARIAN
DIFFERENCES, AND A BREAK WITH METHODISM

1857-1861

Although William Booth lived to a great age, and up to
the very last was full of energy, he was an invalid who
suffered from one of the most distressing and exhausting of
physical complaints. The seeds of this affliction were no
doubt sown in the bitter days of poverty, wretchedness,
overwork, and religious excitement, when he served as an
apprentice in Nottingham; but he might have been cured,
one thinks, had it not been for the restless energy and the
continual nervous exhaustion of his life in the early days of
his Mission. He may be said to have almost destroyed his
digestion before he was six-and-twenty.

In his happy moments he was playful, tender, and con-
siderate. But when dyspepsia manifested itself, when his
body, starved of nourishment, was uttering its rebellion,
he was often irascible, explosive, and sometimes even cen-
sorious. However, as w^e shall see in the course of this
narrative, there was never real harm in these outbursts.
There was nothing in his nature that could be called vin-
dictive or radically bad-tempered ; but ill health always
found the weak spot in his character, the weak spot which
in some ways was destined to be the strength of his life —
that stubbornness, that sense of dogmatic rightness, that
feeling of obstinate dictatorship, which gave offence to
many, but which was the rock of safety for so many more.

If we wish to call him a saint we must remind ourselves
that the conventional view of saintship is not catholic;
there have been real and great saints very different in dis-
position from St. Francis of Assisi. And without exalting
him to the seats of the highest saints, without claiming that
he is the peer of those untroubled spirits w^hose names
breathe like cathedral music through the soul of Chris-

274

THE REV. WILLIAM BOOTH (1859)

[cHAP.xvmj BREAKS WITH METHODISM 275

tendoni, we may still urge that if the test of saintship is
sacrifice of self, entire dependence on invisible power, and
passionate devotion to " the poorest, the lowliest, and the
lost," few men have lived, carrying so heavy a burden as
this man carried, who more deserved to be enrolled among
the saints of Christ.

It is possible, of course, to urge that he brought his ills
upon himself ; that with reasonable care and a more sensible
outlook upon the world, he would have avoided the affliction
w'hich made him sometimes irritable and occasionallv ex-
plosive. This, no doubt, is a just charge; but William
Booth would have replied to it that had he been more
cautious and more careful of himself, he would have been
a thousand times more irritable. For he was a man w^ho
could not look calmly upon a distracted world ; his tempera-
ment was such that he could not behold misery without
longing to remove it, could not see sin without rushing to
attack it. Other men can survey the sin and suffering of
humanity with an infinite indifference, or, at any rate, with
that dangerous form of faith common to leisured deism,
which sings of God in His Heaven, unconscious of God
immanent in humanity ; but William Booth felt that he
had to work, felt that he had to do something, felt that he
W'as definitely charged by God with the work to which he
set his hand. How could such a man be philosophical and
detached? How^ could he take care of himself?

Mrs. Booth, as the reader will remember, was critical of
some methods of revivalism in the days of her first en-
counter w^ith William Booth; but she ultimately accepted
her husband's views, and herself became one of the most
powerful and persuasive exponents of those views. If one
would have a defence of revivalism, she has given it in a
few sentences which not only are a veritable defence of such
methods, but which help one considerably to see into the
minds of these two awakeners.

She says that she would rather have a sudden conversion
than a tardy one. " When m^en are seen to be wrong, it
must be very desirable to get them right." Here is a man,
she exclaims, who has developed a fixed habit of evil-doing,
of falsehood, impurity, drunkenness, or some other sin.

276 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

" The great end in view is to persuade him to abandon his
evil course, and surely the sooner you can persuade him to
do so the better."

I have been very much struck (she continues) with the dif-
ferent manner in which people argue about temporal and
spiritual things. In regard to the former, supposing a friend
is about to adopt some mistaken course, you ply him with the
best arguments you can command, and the more quickly these
take effect the better you are pleased . . . you do not think
any the worse of him because of the readiness with which he
has accepted the truth. Nor do you for a moment imagine
that he must go through a long preparatory process before he
can act upon his convictions. Why, then, in the religious
world should the exactly similar phenomenon be doubted, sim-
ply on account of its suddenness?

William Booth cries out:

"Be patient," do you say? ''Wait the Lord's time?"
This is the Lord's time ; why should I wait ? There is a
sanctified anger because it is just, and there is a sanctified im-
patience because it is born of benevolence. How can we wait
and see the people die, and see the generations sweep ofif be-
fore our eyes into eternal woe, that might be rescued — that
might be saved?

He answers those who say to him, " You go too fast,"
with the bewildered question, " What do you mean? "

I know no " Flying Dutchman " or *' Flying Scotchman," or
any other kind of flying railway train that goes fast enough for
me. Time is so precious that unless it can be spent in sleeping
or working, every minute of it is begrudged, and my feeling
whenever I seat myself in a train — be the journey long or
short — is '' Now, engine-driver, do your best, and fly away."

He argues that if he were head of a money-making busi-
ness, no investor would complain that he made profits too
quickly; or that, if he were general of a killing army, he
could not go fast enough in slaughter to please his country-
men. Then he faces the real criticism :

'' But there is danger with great speed." Well, perhaps
there is, but that is not certain ; and if there is I decline to
abate the speed to avoid the risk. If this thing is worth
doing, let us do it with all our might. " But if you go on the
smash will come." Well, perhaps it will.

XVIII] BREAKS WITH METHODISM 2yy

He was prepared for the risk, the risk which he con-
fronted with his wife again and again, that perhaps they
were making an impossible demand which must end in
reaction and catastrophe. But the destructive energy of
sin dragged him away from this doubt, and he decided that
the only forces which could destroy him were the forces of
evil, the same forces which '* smashed Jesus Christ." He
cried out that sin travels faster than salvation ; that salvation
must press forward at all hazard to overtake and quench
that " prairie fire " ; that while the soldier of Christ slackens
speed death steals a march upon a guilty world. No.
''Faster and faster," is his cry; whatever the risk, what-
ever the end; faster and faster till a catastrophe like the
catastrophe of Calvary ends one period and begins another.

His character may be seen very clearly in a charge to
his followers where he bids them cultivate whatever dis-
position they possess. He does not say to the angry man
cease to be angry, or to the jealous man cease to be jealous;
he says to them, make your anger and your jealousy like
the anger and the jealousy of God — hate sin, and be
jealous for the souls of humanity. He never sought to
transform men ; he sought to convert them. They were to
be the same men, but facing in another direction. The
same faculties which they had employed for evil were to
be more industriously and passionately employed for good :

Go on hating, night and day, in every place, under all cir-
cumstances. Bring this side of your nature well into play.
Practise yourself in habits of scorn and contempt and loath-
ing and detestation and revenge ; but mind, let your hatred and
revenge go in the right direction — the direction of sin — evil
— the evil condemned by the Bible, the evil that Jesus Christ
was manifested to destroy.

He used to say of himself that he was not a saint but a
soldier. His disposition was what it was; he could only
direct it towards God. One knows that he could never
have written the Fourth Gospel. And yet it is important
to observe that while he was a bold and unquestioning
follower of St. Paul, he acknowledged in his heart the supe-
rior qualities of St. John. Again and again he expresses a
burning and a consuming desire for deeper spirituality.

278 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

He named his first son after William Bramwell, '' the
apostle of Holiness." He was always seeking for that
serenity of the soul which -is the saint's reward, a deeper
]ov than the exhilaration of the soldier, a more lasting and
a more permeating strength than ever comes from the
exercise of battle. To the end of his life he was haunted,
dimly and vaguely perhaps, by something in the spiritual
life which he had missed and which he sighed for as one
of the rewards of Heaven. He was distressed to his last
days by the sins and miseries of the world. He had
fought a good fight, but the world was not changed.

Everything faulty in his character had its rise in the
impatience of a soul wellnigh maddened by the endless
miseries of mankind, and stung to indignation by the sloth
and deadness of the Christian Church. He was obsessed
by Jehovah, and his thoughts of this terrible and avenging
God of Israel had flowed from childhood in channels of a
western grooving. And yet the immense achievement of
his life rose out of this very conception of God. Because
he believed in the everlasting tortures of Hell, he was tor-
tured by the sins of mankind ; because he believed in a stern
and terrible Jehovah, he spared no moment of his life from
shouting his stern and terrible warning to a thoughtless
world. He not only won thousands and thousands of men
from the degradation and destruction of sin, he roused the
whole Church of Christ to activitv and definitelv influenced
the social politics of the world. But if his theology had
been more consonant with the theolog}' which we feel is
truer, chiefly because it is less dogmatic, his life might have
passed with infinitely less benefit for mankind.

His life, indeed, presents many difficult problems. We
are puzzled to decide, for instance, whether the intense
exertion of impassioned preaching, which certainly helped
to impair his health and perhaps tinged a fine heroic
character with faults that we could wish away, did not at
the same time tend to prolong his life. Instead of nursing
himself and playing the dangerous tricks with his body
which carry so many valetudinarians to the grave, he threw
off his letharg}', his depression, and his intense lassitude, by
campaigns which would have exhausted the strength of

xviii] BREAKS WITH METHODISM 279

robust men. He seems to have injured his health and pre-
served his Hfe by the same means. And it would appear
that he resolutely faced the sacrifice of his health, knowing
full well the effect it would produce upon him, because he
was convinced that his life could benefit the world.

It is no exaggeration to say of him that he thought so
much more of the world than of his own personal place in
the favour of God, that he never set himself to win the
heights of saintship, but deliberately threw himself into the
battle of life where qualities other than meekness and gentle-
ness can alone distinguish the hero from the coward.

Until he finally came to London, in 1865, where his
career entered upon a new and remarkable phase, he was a
struggling minister of a dissenting church which did not pay
him very liberally, and which harassed him at every turn.
From town to town, dragging his invalid wife and his chil-
dren with him, he went, preaching his flaming message of
God's anger against sin. A more burdened and embar-
rassed man never set hand to work so exhausting and so
heartbreaking. Poor in purse, suffering in body, worried
by officialdom, torn by anxiety for his delicate wife and his
young children, he was one of the most successful revival-
ists that ever visited the north and west of England. From
the heated excitements of the crowded buildings, refusing
invitations to the houses of his admirers, he hurried back
to his lodgings to wait upon his wife, to care for his chil-
dren, often to sit up sleepless through the night racked
with pain and spiritual conflict. Is it any wonder, we may
ask, that he injured his health and hindered his character?

Some of his letters at this period are charged with the
melancholy of a soul suffering the extreme of mental tor-
ture. He doubts the sincerity of some conversions. He
doubts his own vocation. He fears the future for his wife
and children.

In one of these pathetic letters which tells his wife,
'' I have a constant load at my chest and weight on my
head," he speaks of the conversion of a young girl who
'' wept sorely and appeared in great distress and to have
much rejoiced when she got a hope." He continues:

But I hear she was dancing away Thursday and Friday in

28o THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

the Market House, with half the town looking on. I have
many thoughts about this kind of converted people, indeed
many temptations about the whole affair. I find so few who
seem to me to live Christianity. IVho is there?

Then he proceeds :

I am sorry to hear you tell of your sickness. I can't help
you noiv. My sympathy comes too late. I have nothing
wherewith to comfort you. I have not had a thought or feel-
ing the last 24 hours the description of which would cheer you
in the least. And I don't see any ground for expecting any-
thing in the future.

Inside the flap of an envelope, bearing the post-mark of
Chester and the date Feb. 24, 1857, William Booth writes
to his wife :

AIy heart's warmest fondest Love — I have pressed this
to my lips with as tender emotion as ever I clasped you in my
arms. The usual number of kisses for " Sunshine." Does he
get them all?

'* Sunshine " was the child Bramwell, from whom his
father was parted, and whose companionship might have
driven away the clouds which pressed upon his mind and
darkened his way.

So deep is his dejection that he even contemplates a
complete abandonment of his mission:

I wonder whether I could not get something to do in London
of some kind, some secretaryship or something respectable that
would keep us going. I know how difficult such things are to
obtain without friends or influence, as I am fixed. But we
must hope against hope, I suppose.

The letter concludes, '' I think I will take a book and go
out and see if I can feel any better with a little fresh air."

Acute indigestion was not alone responsible for this fit
of despair. Indigestion was there to aggravate his mind,
but the real bur-den pressing upon his soul and sickening his
enthusiasm was the hostility of his Church. He found him-
self harried, criticised, and opposed. The more he suc-
ceeded the more bitter became this hostility. The life he

XVIII] BREAKS WITH METHODISM 281

desired to live was not an easy life; on the contrary, it was
the most laborious and wearying and disheartening life that
a man could undertake; but the authorities hampered him
and refused his request. It was not as if he alone desired to
live this life; the towns he had visited were crying out for
his return. We may safely say that since Wesley no such
evangelist had appeared in England.

We do not wish to imply that this opposition to William
Booth was entirely without reason. His methods were
ardent and unusual; he must have shocked or offended a
great many pious people; his appearance in a town did,
no doubt, lead to certain manifestations of violent emotion.
But he was opposed on other grounds as well as these.
Certain ministers in the New Connexion were his enemies;
many felt that he was too young for such perpetual promi-
nence; others were unquestionably jealous of his powers.

The result of this opposition culminated after wearisome
checks and quite heroic efforts on William Booth's part to
accommodate himself to authority in a final severance from
the Church. In the year 1857 the Annual Conference of
the New Connexion met in Nottingham, and decided that
William Booth should cease his evangelistic work and be
appointed to a regular circuit. He wrote to acquaint Mr.
and Mrs. Mumf ord with this result in the following terms :

You will have been expecting a line from us containing Con-
ference information, and now that our -suspense is ended in
certainty, or nearly so, I take the first opportunity of sending
you a line. For some time I have been aware that a party
has been forming against me. Now it has developed itself
and its purpose. It has attacked and defeated my friends, and
my evangelistic mission is to come to an immediate conclusion.
On Saturday, after a debate of five hours, in which I am in-
formed the bitterest spirit was manifested against me, it was
decided by 44 to 40 that I be appointed to a circuit. The chief
opponents to my continuance in my present course are
ministers, the opposition being led on by the Rev. P. J. Wright
and Dr. Crofts. I care not so much for myself. A year's
rest will be very acceptable. By that time, God will, I trust,
make plain my way before me, either to abide as a circuit
preacher, or by opening me a door which no man or number
of men shall be able to shut. My concern is for the Con-
nexion — my deep regret is for the spirit this makes manifest,
and the base ingratitude it displays.

282 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

From one of his sympathizers he received a manful and
amusing letter of encouragement, which shows how af-
fectionately he was regarded by some of the laity in his
communion :

I believe that, as far as the preachers have power, they will
close the New Connexion pulpits against you. Human nature
is the same in every Conference, whether Episcopalian, Wes-
leyan. New Connexion, Primitive, or Quaker. And the only
way for such men as you and Caughey to escape the mental
rack and handcuffs is to take out a licence to hawk salvation
from the great Magistrate above, and absolutely refuse to have
any other master.

O Brother Booth, if I could preach and floor the sinners like
you can, I would not thank Queen Victoria to be my aunt or
cousin ! When I hear or read of your success, I could wish
to be your shoe-black! There is no man of whom I have read,
Caughey excepted, who has equalled you for usefulness, con-
sidering the short time you have been at it. A.nd for you to
allow the decrees of the New Connexion Conference, or of
any other conclave of men, to turn you away from follow-
ing the guidance of the Holy Spirit, is what I cannot bear
to think of. I know what you feel, and I also have shed the
big agonizing tear, when placed in the same circumstances.
Glory be to God. I am free, and I will keep so. You know
what the wolf said to Towser, *' Half a meal with liberty is
better than a whole one without it ! "

The Booths were sent to Brighouse; ''a. low^ smoky
town," said ]\Irs. Booth, " and we are situated in the worst
part of it." Their superintendent is described as " a
sombre, funereal kind of being . . . utterly incapable of co-
operating w^ith A-Ir. Booth in his ardent views and plans for
the salvation of the people." It was a sad and very
melancholy time, only relieved by the domestic happiness
of a second addition to their family in the person of Ball-
ington Booth. '' Lalx)ur in this circuit," wrote William
Booth, *' is the most like ploughing on a rock of anything
I ever experienced in my life." He cries out that he can
only be happy '' in a floodtide of salvation," and utters the
desire of his heart to be " independent of all conclaves,
councils, synods, and conferences."

It was at Brighouse that ]\Irs. Booth began to help in
the work of the Church, and this she did successfully in

XVIII] BREx\KS WITH METHODISM 283

spite of domestic occupations. Her love for her children,
and at the same time her strictness with them, is shown in
the following instructive letter to her parents :

The children are well. They are two beauties. Oh, I often
feel as though they cannot be mine ! It seems too much to be
true that they should be so healthy, when I am such a poor
thing ! But it appears as if the Lord had ordered it so, while
many whom I know, who are far healthier and stronger than
ourselves, have delicate children. I sometimes think it is a
kind of reward to William for his honourable fideHty to me,
notwithstanding my delicate health and his many temptations
before we were married. I beheve in a retributive Providence,
and often try to trace domestic misery to its source, which is
doubtless frequently to be found in the conduct of men towards
their early loves. God visits for such things in a variety of
ways. Bless the Lord, we are reaping no such fruits. The
curse of no stricken heart rests on our lot, or on our children.
But in peace and domestic happiness we " live and love to-
gether." . . .

Willie gets every day more lovable and engaging and affec-
tionate. He manifests som.e very pleasing traits of character.
You would love to see him hug Ballington, and offer him a bit
of everything he has! He never manifests the slightest
jealousy or selfishness towards him, but on the contrary he
laughs and dances when he caresses baby, and when it cries
he is quite distressed. I have used him to bring me the foot-
stool when I nurse baby, and now he runs with it to me as
soon as he sees me take him up, without waiting to be asked,
a piece of thoughtfulness I seldom receive from older heads !
Bless him. I believe he will be a thoroughly noble lad, if I
can preserve him from all evil influences. The Lord help me !
I have had to whip him twice lately severely for disobedience,
and it has cost me some tears. But it has done him good,
and I am reaping the reward already of my self-sacrifice. The
Lord help me to be faithful and firm as a rock in the path
of duty towards my children !

The reader will understand the need for tears on
Mrs. Booth's part when he remembers that the disobedient
Bramwell was two years of age at the time of his whipping.

It was at Brighouse that Mrs. Booth was threatened
with a return of the spinal affliction which had condemned
her to bed and sofa in youth. She exclaims that but for
the children she would like to escape from her '' trouble-
some, crazy body."

284 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

William was talking the other day (she writes home) about
the different bodies we shall have after the resurrection. I
replied that I hoped so, or I should never want to find mine
any more. I would leave it to the worms as an everlasting por-
tion, and prefer to live without one! It is much harder to
suffer than to labour, specially when you have so many calls
on your attention.

They paid a visit to Sheffield, where they met James
Caughey, the American revivalist, who baptized Ballington
and wrote an inscription in Mrs. Booth's Bible. " When
he took leave of me," she says, " I pressed one fervent kiss
on his hand, and felt more gratified than if it had been
Queen Victoria."

A brief account of William Booth's ordination is fur-
nished by his son-in-law, Commissioner Booth-Tucker, in
his biography of Catherine Booth :

The Conference met In May at Hull. Mr. Booth was unani-
mously received into what is termed full connection, his four
years of probation now having expired. He was accordingly
summoned to present himself for ordination. This was a
somewhat formidable ceremony. The President for the year,
and the ex-Presidents of former years, stood upon the plat-
form for the purpose of " laying hands " on the candidates,
who were previously called upon to give an account of their
conversion, and of their reasons for seeking ordination.

Air. Booth had stipulated with some of those in whose piety
and devotion he thoroughly believed, that he should be near
them and reap whatever advantage might accrue from their
faith and prayers, while there were others whom he studiously
avoided, feeling that if the laying on of their hands involved
the impartation of the character and spirit they possessed, he
would rather dispense with it !

The question of his re-appointment to evangelistic work had
not as yet come up for the consideration of the Conference.
A number of circuits had petitioned in favour of the proposal,
and Mr. Booth's friends were prepared to push the matter
vigorously when it was brought forward for discussion. The
following characteristic letter from him just after he had re-
ceived his ordination describes the situation :

2gth May, 1858.
I have just been to Hull to receive the right of ordination.
I understand that my reception into full connection was most

XVIII] BREAKS WITH METHODISM 285

cordial and thoroughly unanimous. The service was an in-
teresting one. I was surprised to find so large a number of
revival friends at the Conference. John Ridgway, William
Mills, William Cooke, Turnock, and many others are anxious
on the question of my re-appointment to evangelistic work.
Birmingham, Truro, Halifax (my own circuit), Chester,
Hawarden, and Macclesfield have presented memorials pray-
ing Conference to reinstate me in my former position. The
discussion had not come on when the business closed last
night.

In 1858 they went to Gateshead, with the half promise
of evangelistic work at the end of the year. Gateshead
had once been a flourishing centre of the Connexion, but
the defection of a minister, who had turned infidel lecturer,
had caused a grievous set-back. William Booth came as
a deliverer, and soon had a full chapel. ^' It was not
uncommon for the aisles and every available spot to be
occupied so that some two thousand people w^ere crowded
within the walls." The iron-workers of the town dubbed
this chapel the " Converting Shop."

A daughter w^as born to the Booths in Gateshead,
Catherine, who, as the " Marechale," became the pioneer
of the Salvation Army in France. Instead of regarding
this addition to their responsibilities as a grievance, the
Booths appear to have been extremely grateful and happy
about it. For one thing, their work in Gateshead was
going with a swing. It w-as a revival in one place, continu-
ous and well organized. Open-air work, a new thing in the
town, was a feature of the campaign, and the opposition of
the publicans, who sent out gangs of half-tipsy men to sing
and howl the services down, only increased the enthusiasm
of the workers.

But the most significant events in this campaign con-
cerned Mrs. Booth. It was here that the idea first occurred
to her of speaking to drunken people in their houses and
in the streets. At a time when she was extremely delicate,
and with three young children to look after, she began this
hazardous and nerve-trying work, succeeding so happily
that she could go into some of the worst streets quite alone
and enter houses where drunkenness had brought family

286 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

life to a state of savagery. " They used to let me talk to
them," she says, " in hovels where there was not a stick of
furniture and nothing to sit down upon."

I remember in one case finding a poor woman lying on a
heap of rags. She had just given birth to twins, and there
was nobody of any sort to wait upon her. ... By her side
was a crust of bread and a small lump of lard. . . . The
babies I washed in a broken pie-dish, the nearest approach
to a tub that I could find. And the gratitude of those large
eyes, that gazed upon me from that wan and shrunken face,
can never fade from my memory.

In i860, soon after the birth of her daughter, Emma,
Mrs. Booth gave her first public address, crowning her long
championship of a *' Female Ministry " by practical demon-
stration. Her success, in spite of excessive nervousness,
was immediate, and when William Booth fell ill and had
to go to Matlock for hydropathic treatment, Mrs. Booth
took his place in the chapel.

Trouble succeeded trouble. With William Booth seri-
ously ill, all the children were attacked by whooping cough.
And as soon as these dangers were overcome, the Booths
found themselves once more confronted by the problem of
the Conference. They realized that to drift was no longer
possible. They thought that uncertainty had continued long
enough. If the Conference could not find a plan for
William Booth to do evangelistic work in the various
churches of the Connexion, then he was prepared to go out
into the wilderness alone.

But he possessed not a penny. His wife was delicate,
and they had four young children. With these considera-
tions weighing them down, they set out for the Conference
of 1861, which was held in Liverpool. Fortunately for
William Booth, Catherine Booth went with him. As will
be seen from the following letters addressed by Mrs. Booth
to her parents, and by what comes after, it was almost
entirely owing to the resolution, courage, and faith of this
wonderful woman -that William Booth cut himself adrift
from the moorings of his Church. L'p till the last moment
he was afraid, and clung to the hope of a compromise —
hating controversy, reverencing authority, and clinging to

THE REV. WILLIAM AND CATHERINE
BOOTH (i860)

XVIII] BREAKS WITH METHODISM 287

his Church. It was Catherine Booth who played the good
Lady Macbeth in this minor tragedy.

Mrs. Booth to her Parents.

Newcastle, June, 1861.

We have reason to fear that the Annual Committee will not
allow even this arrangement [ ? to be associated with the Aln-
wick Circuit and travel, living at Newcastle] to be carried out,
and if not, I do not see any honourable course for us but
to resign at once and risk all (if trusting in the Lord for our
bread in order to do what we believe to be His vv^ill ought to
be called a risk). If the arrangement is allowed to work it
involves all sorts of difficulties. This Circuit is the worst to
be managed in the whole Connexion, and William will get
nothing by his connection with it but trouble and vexation.
This I have seen from the beginning and have opposed his
coming so far as I could. . . . We don't know what to do.
We only want to do right. If I thought it was right to stop
here in the ordinary [circuit] work, I would be quite glad to
do so, but I cannot believe that it would be right for my
husband. And none of our friends would think it right //
ive only had an income! Then, I ask, does the securing of
our bread and cheese make that right which should otherwise
be wrong when God has promised to feed and clothe us ? I
think not. and I am willing to trust Him, and suffer if need
be in order to do His will.

William is afraid. He thinks of me and the children and
I appreciate his love and care, but I tell him that God will
provide if he will only go straight on in the path of duty. It
is strange that / who always shrink from the sacrifice should
be first in making it, but when I made the surrender I did it
whole-heartedly, and ever since I have been like another being.
Oh, pray for us yet more and more.

I am much tempted to feel it hard that God has not cleared
our path more satisfactorily, but I will not charge God fool-
ishly. I know that His way is often in the whirlwind, and He
rides upon the storm. I will try to possess my soul in patience
and to wait for Him.

The children are all well. They do not like the change at
all. Bless them ! I don't think the Lord will ever allow them
to suffer if their parents seek to do His will.

We are very much obliged for your sympathy and kindness
and counsel. With reference to upbraiding, I have often told
\\'illiam that if he takes the step and it should bring me to the
L^nion I will never say one upbraiding word. To upbraid any
one for taking such a step for God's and conscience' sake
would be v\'orse than devilish. No, vdiatever be the result I

288 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

shall make up my mind to endure It patiently, looking to the
Lord for grace and strength to do so.

We have sold the piano to Mr. Firbank, but it is not to
be paid for at present. We have nothing coming in now from
any quarter. William has no invitations for work. The time
is unfavourable. He has two for the winter, but the preachers
will prevent the Circuits asking for him, and Dr. Cooke's
resolution makes it worse than it was before, because the con-
sent of the Superintendent is necessary. We already know of
Circuits who want him where we have no doubt the preachers
stand in the way. Oh, if it were not for God's sake, I feel
that I should be ashamed to be a preacher's wife.

Mrs. Booth to her Parents.

June 24th, 1861.

I hope neither you nor my dear father think that I want
to run precipitately into the position we contemplate. I have
thought about it long and much. It has cost me many a strug-
gle to bring my mind to it, but having done so, I have never
swerved from what I believe to be the right course ; neither
dare I. But I am quite willing to listen to argument, to re-
ceive light, or even to zcait for the accomplishment of our de-
sires if I can only see justifiable reasons. But I have no hope
that God w^U ever assure us that we shall lose nothing in
seeking to do His will. I don't think this is God's plan. I
think He sets before us our duty, and then demands its per-
formance, trusting solely in Him for consequences. If He
had promised beforehand to give Abraham his Isaac back
again, there would never have been that illustrious display of
faith and love which has served to encourage and cheer God's
people in all ages. If we could always see our way, we should
not ever walk by faith but by sight.

I know God's professing people are generally as anxious to
see their way as w^orldlings are, but they thus dishonour God
and greatly injure themselves.

I have only one difficulty in my own mind in making the
full venture of all, and that is whether my religious experience
warrants me in claiming the fulfilment of the promises in my
own individual case. The Lord help us to be found faithful.
I don't believe in any religion apart from doing the will of
God. Faith is the united link between Christ and the soul.
If we don't do the will of our Father, it will soon be broken.
If my dear husband can find a sphere where he can preach
the Gospel to the masses, I shall want no further evidence
of the will of God concerning him. If he cannot find a
'Sphere, I shall conclude that we are mistaken and be willing
to wait till one opens. But I cannot believe that we ought
to wait till God guarantees us as much salary as we now re-

xviii] BREAKS WITH METHODISM 289

ceive. I think we ought to trust Him to send us the supply
of our need.

Mrs. Booth to her Parents.

Newcastle, July 9, 1861.

We have at length decided our course of action for at least
this Connexional year, and after careful thought we have come
to the conclusion to continue the present arrangement with this
Circuit, and thus secure William's perfect freedom to go
wherever God may call him, and if there should be no way
open he can still take a Circuit and we shall at least have
done our best to secure what w^e deem most for God's glory
and the salvation of souls.

. . . William has several invitations, one to St. Ives in Corn-
wall, but he won't engage there if anything nearer him offers.
He had a good beginning at Alnwick, wonderful for the place,
but the blindness and infatuation and narrow-mindedness of
the preachers is enough to make the stones cry out. Mr.

thought it would be w4ser to defer the Services till the

winter as one of the leading families was going to the sea-
side! so that poor convicted sinners and Christ and God must
wait their convenience ! However, WiUiam has delivered his
soul to theml

First, we have decided to stop in this house till November
because we can live rent free till then, and I have felt much
better the last week. Second, William is invited to Notting-
ham for Anniversary sermons, and he is going to offer for a
couple of Services, and if they accept, I purpose going with
him, and then when we are near we intend going on to Derby
and making a regular start together. Then if we only get one
good work, I have no fear. I have no fear of being able
to speak in public for at least some months to come, and we
must make the most of our opportunities at first. It appears
to me that God may have something very glorious in store
for us, and when He has tried us, He will bring us forth as
gold. My difficulty is in leaving home. In this matter, I am
sure you can help us and serve the Lord without hurting your-
selves in the least.

Mrs. Booth to her Parents.

July II, 1 861.
We have -settled the matter, and we are not going to leave a
stone unturned that is right and honourable to attain
our object, and if we cannot why then we shall but be where
we were before, but we intend with God's blessing to suc-
ceed. I do not fear but we shall, and if we do, every one will
then see cause to honour us, and I shall get my share of

290 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

honour, for hosts of people say, and others think, that if it
were not for me WilHam would have taken the Circuit.

Well, I know my own motives, and they are such as I shall
not blush to own at the Judgment Seat of Christ. It won't
be the first time I have taken a leap in the dark humanly
speaking, for conscience' sake.

I am aware, on the other hand, that if we fail nearly every-
body will censure us and set us down as fanatics, but I am pre-
pared to endure the cross and despise the shame if God sees fit
to permit it to come. The same integrity of purpose which
would enable me to enjoy honour will likewise sustain me
under reproach.

The Conference is not likely to interest posterity, and
those who desire a full account of what happened there will
find it described in Commissioner Booth-Tucker's Life of
Catherine Booth (chapter xxxix). For our purpose it is
sufficient to say that this Conference was held in a chapel,
and that Mrs. Booth, w^ho was seated with other members
of the public in the gallery, when questioned by a glance
from her husband in the pews below as to whether he should
accept a miserable compromise, rose in her place and ex-
claimed in a determined voice, which startled the business-
like gentlemen below, " Never ! " At that resolute ex-
clamation Mr. Booth, we are told, sprang to his feet, and
bowing to the chair " waved his hat in the direction of the
door." Amidst shouts of '' Order, order," he passed down
the chapel, met his wife at the foot of the gallery stairs,
embraced her, and went out to face the consequences of his
act.

Efforts were made to induce the young minister to re-
consider his decision, but the Booths were determined to
compromise no longer. Rightly or wrongly the officials of
the New Connexion were dead against the evangelistic ideas
of William Booth; he was a nuisance to the powers; they
wanted the machine to run smoothly ; and every compromise
suggested by those who knew^ his value was eventually col-
oured by this spirit of traditional respectability. In his
letter of resignation William Booth said, " Looking at the
past, God is my witness how earnestly and disinterestedly I
have endeavoured to serve the Connexion, and knowing that
the future will most convincingly and emphatically either
vindicate or condemn my present action, I am content to

xvm] BREAKS WITH METHODISM 291

await its verdict." But although he could write so confi-
dently, and although with a stout heart he had announced
to the Conference that he would do the w-ork to which he
felt that God had called him, even if he went forth " with-
out a friend and without a farthing,'' it w^as a black day in-
deed for him when he found himself actually cut adrift
from his Church. After seven years of devoted service, he
w^as penniless; and this time he had a wife and children for
whose care he and no other could provide.

CHAPTER XIX

WILDERNESS
1861-1864

The idea which now occupied the mind of WilHam Booth
— the first sign of movement towards the career which
awaited him in London — was to extend his revivaHsm from
the particular denomination he had served so industriously
for seven years to all the Churches of his native land.

He and his wife paid a brief visit to Nottingham after
the resignation, and Mrs. Booth then proceeded direct from
this place to her parents in London. William Booth, in
order to save expense, returned to Newcastle, where they
had left their four children, and took them by sea to
London. He was accompanied, it is interesting to observe,
by their faithful Irish servant, Mary Kirton, who had de-
clared that " no change in circumstances should induce her
to leave her mistress, and that, with or without wages, she
would continue to shepherd the little ones."

The stranded and penniless family were quartered for
the present upon Mr. and Mrs. Mumford in Brixton, who
showed the greatest^ kindness to the Booths in their difficult
position. An in itation from a faithful friend in the New
Connexion to conduct a mission in Hayle, Cornwall, w^as
the first opening of a door since the resignation, and thither
the Booths journeyed in August. But it was a very small
door indeed, and people more worldly-minded than William
Booth might have been tempted to wait for something that
offered a wider prospect of success. No remuneration, so
far as we can see, was suggested ; and apparently the Booths
had to pay their own travelling expenses.

However, this humble mission in a small town wath a
coasting trade of no very considerable proportions was
destined to widen into a great Cornish Campaign. Al-
though he was warned that the Cornish people would not

tolerate a penitent-form, William Booth persisted in this

292

[CHAP. XIX] WILDERNESS 293

method of confessing Christ, and soon had crowds of
people, weeping, groaning, and beating upon their breasts,
kneeling at this simple symbol of the mercy-seat.

We had the greatest difficulty (he writes) to clear sufficient
space for a penitent-form, and when we had, the people
crowded up and around, and the prayers of those in distress,
the shouts of those who had obtained deliverance, and the
sympathetic exhortations and exultations and congratulations
of those who stood round, all united made the most confound-
ing medley I ever listened to. Again and again I endeavoured
to secure order, but it was of no avail, and at length I con-
cluded to let it go for the evening, doing as well as we could.

He speaks all through his journals at this time of diffi-
culty in preaching, and occasionally tells of the pains which
racked him. '' Opened my eyes this morning," he says in
one place, '' with strong desire for more of the Holy Ghost
in my own heart. Felt some little power in private. I
want more." A venerable friend of mine, visiting in Corn-
wall at this time, tells me that she saw him in Pendeen
Church on Good Friday, w^here a well-known evangelist,
the Rev. Robert Aitken, was preaching; she remembers
that William Booth listened intently to the sermon, that he
remained in prayer long after the service was concluded,
and that his eyes were filled with tears as he waited to
spe-ak to the Vicar.

There can be no doubt, in spite of all the accounts of
this time, that William Booth was suffering very acutely
both in body and soul. To read the descriptions of that
remarkable Cornish Revival one might imagine that the
revivalist himself was carried forward on a wave of en-
thusiasm, glowing with the pride of victory, and happy in
the conviction that he had found his mission. But this is
an altogether false impression. Often he had to drag him-
self to the various chapels he visited, his head bursting
with pain, his whole body heavy with sickness, his mind
harassed by the thought of the future, his soul asking
questions hard to answer. Occasionally he was troubled by
the character of the conversions. Sometimes he wondered
if this work was indeed the work to which he had been
called by God. He contemplated the abandonment of his

294 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

preaching, and once suggested to his wife that he should
seek commercial work in London.

It is interesting and instructive to remember that this
immense depression of mind occurred in a revival which
unquestionably was a real religious awakening. Villagers
tramped over the hills, and fishermen rowed eight and ten
miles across a dark sea, to the towns where William Booth
was preaching. Local newspapers record that in some
places business was at a standstill. Throughout that corner
of the duchy, from Camborne to Penzance, the flame raged
with increasing force. Conversions were made in hundreds.
Scenes occurred '' beyond description " ; the cries and
groans "were enough to melt a heart of stone"; in the
town of St. Just '' a thousand persons have been gathered
into membership in the different churches."

There was opposition, of course, to this fiery campaign.
The Wesleyans, for instance, decided to close their chapels
to ]\Ir. and ]\Irs. Booth. Nor did the reports of the revival
influence the 1862 Conference of the Xew Connexion. By
56 votes to 15 the Conference decided to accept 'Mr. Booth's
resignation, and thus any hope he may have nourished of a
return to the Church of his adoption was effectually
knocked on the head. At the same time the Primitive
Methodists passed a resolution " strongly urging all their
station authorities to avoid the employment of revivalists,
so called."

In this way William Booth was saved from the coils of
a somewhat narrow ecclesiasticism, and, being driven out
of a particular Church, was driven towards his appointed
destiny. He was not to serve one Church, but all the
Churches ; he was not to labour in one country, but in all
countries.

The Booths at this juncture were staying in Penzance,
and here another child was born, a son, Herbert, bringing
up the number of the family to five. The situation was a
desperate one. Wesleyans and Primitive ]^Iethodists might
be calling to William Booth from every town in the duchy,
but the ministers had the key of the chapel door, and there
was no admittance for '' revivalists, so called.*' However,
an opening was made for them in Redruth, where the Free

XIX] WILDERNESS 295

]\Iethodists placed their chapel at the disposition of these
gipsies of the religious life, and there a revival was very-
soon in full swing. When the Booths left Cornwall it was
estimated that seven thousand persons had professed con-
version.

A call came to them from Cardiff, and they left Cornwall
in February, 1863, after a visit of eighteen months. It was
at Cardiff that they made something of a break with the
chapels and began a method of procedure which led up to
the Salvation Army. Although chapels were open to them
here and there, the principal chapels were now as firmly
closed against them as the Roman and Anglican Churches.
Therefore the Booths decided to make use of secular build-
ings, and the most successful of their meetings at Cardiff
were held in a circus.

Some of William Booth's pecuniary anxieties were light-
ened at this period in his life by a rich coal merchant,
John Cory, who, with his brother Richard, came under his
influence and gave him generous and unflinching support.
Here, too, the Booths made the acquaintance of ]\Ir. and
Mrs. Billups, also generous people, who showed the greatest
sympathy in their work and became, like the Corys, their
life-long friends.

In spite of this support, the Booths were faced, wherever
they turned, by the boycott of the religious authorities.
They went here and there, preaching where they could and
hoping everywhere for an opening to reach the people, but
encountering everywhere the opposition of officialdom. x\t
Walsall, meetings were held in the open air and a real revival
was established, both William and Catherine Booth drawing
large crowds to hear them. /\nd here they stayed for
some time, their children with them, hoping to have found
a resting-place for at least a few months.

At a children's meeting held in this town by Mrs. Booth,
their eldest child, William Bramwell Booth, '' gave himself
to Christ." The incident is related by Mrs. Booth in a
letter which is very characteristic and enlightening:

For some little time I had been anxious on his behalf. He
had appeared deeply convicted during the Cardiff services, and
one night at the circus I had urged him very earnestly to de-

296 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

cide for Christ. For a long time he could not speak, but I
insisted on his giving me a definite answer, as to whether he
would accept the offer of salvation or not. I shall never for-
get the feeling that thrilled through my soul when my darling
boy, only seven years old, about whom I had formed such
high expectations with regard to his future service to the
Master, deliberately looked me in the face and answered
"No!"

It was, therefore, not only with joy, but with some little
surprise that I discovered him in one of my Walsall meet-
ings kneeling at the communion-rail among a crowd of little
penitents. He had come out of his own accord from the
middle of the hall, and I found him squeezed in among the
rest, confessing his sins and seeking forgiveness. I need not
say that I dealt with him faithfully, and to the great joy of
both his father and myself, he then and there received the as-
surance of pardon.

But Walsall was to prove a disappointment in other
respects. '' I feel a good deal perplexed, and am sometimes
tempted to ^mistrust the Lord," wrote Mrs. Booth. '' But I
will not allow it. Our Father knows!" At that hour
they had not received sufficient money to pay their travelling
expenses and house rent.

Once more harried and dejected, once more ordered by
the policeman of orthodoxy to " move on," the poor gipsies
suddenly found themselves in a fresh crisis. W'illiam Booth
broke down in health. He had contracted a bad ulcerated
throat, he had sprained his ankle, and the worries of his
position were now greatly disturbing his peace of mind.
But for the kindness of some friends who sent him off to
^latlock for hydropathic treatment, there is little doubt
that this breakdown in health, coming at a time of great
financial anxiety, would have had serious results.

In the quotations from the letters of William Booth to
his wife which now follow it will be seen that the impulsive
and ardent revivalist was sometimes called upon to en-
courage the drooping spirits of Catherine Booth. Depres-
sion was not entirely on his side. Very often it was his
courage and his faith wdiich rose to meet difficulties almost
overwhelming to Mrs. Booth. These letters, written from
Sheffield in the autumn of 1864, provide one with a fairly

XIX] WILDERNESS

297

intimate picture of the domestic circumstances of the sepa-
rated couple :

I am rather afraid that I am not going to be very com-
fortably located. There is much knocking about. They come
in and out of my room and sit in it occasionally. I like
privacy. I want no company but yours. I was woke up this
morning at 6 with some one at the house bell and could not
sleep, so i thought I would get up and talk to you. But
they are homely nice people from the neighbourhood of South
Lincolnshire. // / am not right I sJiall change . . . you may
rely on it, my dearest, that I shall be most thankful once more
if possible to abide at home and to abide with thee. But we
must be careful. We could not come here much, if anything,
under iio. We shall want £21 for Assurance directly, and
the extra expenses for winter clothing, sable victorine, teeth,
etc. etc., will be £6 or i8 more. So we must look before we
leap. Still I think there is a sphere here, and I shall do my
utmost to work it, and we will all live together again so
soon as the Lord shall make it possible. . . . My poor little
children. Bless them. x\nd dear Willie; I am afraid we are
rather hard on them sometimes.

. . . Good-bye for the present. Cherish yourself. Always
wear the respirator.

I had a slight throat affection last night. Pray for me.
Live in and for Jesus.

I have little else but this paper with me and I want to use
it and get it out of the way. I fancy it would suit your
writing ; try it. It does not suit my old quill a bit. . . . How
very much I should like to see you to-day, to hold you in my
arms and look at you, right through your eyes into your
heart, the warm living beautiful heart that throbs so full of
sympathy and truth for me and mine, and then to press you
to my heart and hold you there and cover you with kisses,
warm and earnest kisses. Bless you. I send you tzvo kisses ;
you understand me and you will keep your promise with them.

Kiss the children for me. Tell WilHe I got him a penknife
this morning, and Ballington that I am going about the white
mice. The white mice and pigeon man is coming with the
Hallelujah Band to Leeds. I have not time or patience to
write more. Somehow I am nervous, the day is damp and
sultry, and my room is hot and close, and I am out of sorts
for writing ... I feel lonely and nervous. I don't like the
folks much I am with and I am tired. I shall be better in the
morning.

In one of his letters he asks her to send him " a little love-

298 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

talk " to carry about with him in his purse. It appears
that he burnt most of her letters but always kept one par-
ticularly affectionate note which he packed into his purse.
Sometimes, on his rare visits to her, she would find one of
these crumpled notes in his purse, and ashamed of her
" love-talk " would destroy it. " You robbed my purse,"
he complains, " of the bit you sent me to Hyde."

I could write on for hours to you. O we won't be afr-aid of
loving one another. A\'e will not hold in and bind up our
hearts. Let us be grateful for all our mercies. We have many
many more than many around, and there may be gloomy hours
in the future. Days of a long and dreary separation, a separa-
tion made by the grave, O to think of you being the other
side of the river and me not able to see and embrace and
speak to you. Never to hear your voice more. Now you are
away, but I am feasting on you, and on the hour when again
/ hold you, and look at you and kiss you, and have the de-
licious rapture of hearing you say you love and reciprocate
all my feelings.

The visit of the Hallelujah Band to Sheffield interests
him. and it is evident that the impression made upon him
by these Yorkshire '' trophies " was a lasting one, and that
it recurred to his mind when he came to form the Salvation
Army.

They certainly are waking up people here, and our serv-
ices are so different. They all v/ear red shirts, coats, and
vests off. sleeves turned up, and sing and jump together.
This won't last long or take with everybody.

He debates the question of renting a small house in
Sheffield, and making it a centre for their free-lance re-
vivalism :

On the whole, I think it would be the best. Of course I
would like to do better and somewhat different. But is this
the best? I have not seen Mr. Baton. I don't see how he
could help me. It will cost me 7s. to go to Nottingham, 3rd
class return. I would like to have a night there. To go and
come in one day would break mother's heart.

Mrs. Booth appears to have had some trouble with a
dishonest servant, and he writes to her on the subject, re-

XIX] WILDERNESS . 299

ferring at the same time to the engagement of a governess
for the children :

Your letter has amazed me. I am astonished with the girl's
audacity. I am at rest now, but O she must have been to
the Police Station before this time, or she would never have
dared to have gone, when she could so easily have saved her-
self. It was that that perplexed me, and feeling how much
better it was to let 20 guilty persons escape rather than punish
one innocent one. Well! Now I think you should write her
uncle to tell him she has left you, and to say you would like
her to return to him until she can obtain a situation. Could
you not propose this to her? I am so afraid of her taking
to the WORST OF ALL. The Lord have mercy upon her.

With regard to Miss C . I don't dislike her letter. One

thing in it would need an explanation if you engage her, and
that is what does she mean by holidays? Would she expect
to go to Cambridge tzmce a year, and for how long ? A week
or fortnight, say a fortnight once a year, we could not
object to. But longer or more frequently would not be easily
managed. What do you think? That is my mind. Laundress
of course goes in at our offer. ... I hope she understands
what we expect. You must tell her that it is Leeds where we
reside if you engage her. But you must have an understand-
ing about holidays. I don't dislike the tone of her letter, it is
like that of one who has seen something of the world.

. . . T am sorry beyond measure about your toothache.
Could any other dentist help you?

He goes to Nottingham and sees the famous Dr. Paton,
who needed no urging on his visitor's part to embrace the
idea of evangelistic work among the churches.

He read me an extract from an address delivered 3 years
ago, before the Congregational Union of the West Riding of
Yorkshire, stating that the setting apart, the ordaining of three
of their ministers, suitable men to visit the churches, would in
his estimation be one of the greatest boons to the community.

To this letter there is an interesting postscript:

Yours is just to hand. You acted as you often, almost al-
ways do, like a good brave woman with Miss C . I think

you did just right. Never mind about the house. Let God
provide for ns. He has led us wonderfully — often by a way
that we knew not. We have much of earth, few have so much.
O what a joy that we two hearts beat so lovingly and truly

300 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

to each other. Think of that. And our children ; bless them,
and our usefulness, and by and by our Heaven.

Back in Sheffield he writes to her at the end of November :'

I am grieved beyond measure that you are so poorly. What
is to be done? Would not a change, entire change, be useful?
Suppose you were to get right off, not to work, but to rest a
few days. If you could take a service you would be treated
very considerately and kindly at Hartlepool. London is such
a long way. The journey would be fatiguing, and then you
would feel the house smaller. And mother having no servant,
it always pains me to see her driving ahead and groaning amid
her determined energies. I am really concerned about this
sleeplessness. You must rest next week. Don't let little things
put you about. All will be well. Three or six months ago
there was some apparent reason for anxiety. Now, our way
is at least open, wide open, for a supply of our temporal need
and it may be for an abundant supply of it. If the Lord does
open my way with the Independents or if He does continue to
open our way to labour and to secure the income we have had
the last two months, I will have a house in which you can have
some quiet, if I pay £50 rent for it.

And we will have a governess too with some heart and con-
science, if we go on changing one per month for 10 years.
W^hat a heathen trick of Miss C. Well ! I am not sorry in
one respect; it has settled you on the propriety of letting her
go. We have not regretted parting with any of the lot yet.
The smooth-tongued shams and hypocrisies. But look up. I
think you err in not diverting your attention by reading. Here
is the difference between us, and it may have something to do
with my standing the wear and tear. I suffer my mind to be
diverted for a season at least by prayer or books. You must
be always at work. A change of mental occupation is rest
for the mind. When / come home I divert your attention.
Could you not let some book do the same? I send you the
IV.T. Look it through. Read the article on Disraeli's speech.
I will enquire for a library and get you a book when I come.
Your mind preys on itself.

Now I do not think that since we left Cornwall we have
had such reason for gratitude and contentment as we have
now. With care we can earn all the money we need. Our
children are in health. We are saved, so far, from those
gloomy visits to the churchyard which so many other families
have to pay. And we have many many many other mercies.
And we have that which is most precious of all that is human,
our own warm, sympathetic, tJiorough, intelligent, zvell-
groundcd confidence in and affection for each other. Our love

xix] WILDERNESS 301

has not been merely an emotion, but is indeed and of a truth an
affection. Bear in mind Finney's distinction between the two
words.

The optimism of this letter is characteristic. Here is a
man separated from his wife and children, living in lodg-
ings, sparing every penny, grudging every expense upon
himself, travelling to and fro, working furiously in public,
and never sure of an hour's privacy or next week's bread ;
here is a man, w^e say, situated as gloomily and wTetchedly
as this, writing encouragingly to his wife of ''mercies,"
making the proud boast that he will take a house for her if
he has to pay £50 a year for it, and looking without fear and
without anxiety into his future. One admires his optimism,
but one's sympathies are with Mrs. Booth.

" Cheer up! " he writes to her again. " All will be well.
Whatever you do, don't be anxious." He speaks of a good
meeting he has just conducted and says, " I like the folk,
humble and emotional/' Then the governess crops up
again, and we see how his mind is concerned about his
children's education, and the virtues he expects to get for
£20:

1 cannot . . . give you any advice respecting Miss C dif-
ferent to that already given. £20 ought to produce something
more suitable to our wants. I want Ballington teaching, and
the little ones, and if we give that sum we will have some one
who will do it. Enquire about Willie's Latin. Tell Miss

C she must see he is ready with it. He ought to have a

lesson daily.

It seems that he had published a book of hymns, and was
experiencing trouble w'ith the publishers; but he takes mat-
ters into his own hands, acts as his own traveller, and sells
500 copies to a Sheffield bookseller. " So there is just a
chance for me yet! " he adds, half humorously, half hope-
fully.

*' What folly in you," he whites to his wife, " to do
without a fire. It is not in these little things that our cash
goes, but if it were, surely you can afford a bit of fire while
you are at home. Have your fire upstairs." He tells her
that it w^ill do quite as well if she writes to him in pencil.
" Let Willie get you a good H.B. from Bean's, not less

302 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

than 2d., and you can write more easily than with pen
and ink." Her weak spine involved much lying on her
back. He expresses sorrow that he cannot send her any
cheering news. " Most people have had difficulties in ob-
taining anything great on which their hearts have been set.
I hope you will get comfort from some source. I should
like it to be from above. God will help us."

jMrs. Booth meets with bad treatment in her public work,
and he writes to comfort her :

I cannot understand how they can possibly treat yoii and
the work of God thus. If it had been me, I should have
scarcely marvelled, but you — it is absolutely confounding.
... I am sure I hardly know what to advise. That which
comes first is give them up and do it with a high hand. Then
second thoughts say, that ten years hence the treatment we
personally receive from these " leaders " (in religion) will be
as NOTHING. We shall all but have forgotten it. But our
treatment of the n'ork of God, our forbearance and humility
and meekness and perseverance under and in the face of diffi-
culties will be everything.

In another letter he writes dismally of all the various
moneys he owes, '' in all some £85, and then these other
things not included," and adds :

I have not wherewith to meet it. But I suppose I shall
have, some way or other. It certainly looks rather stitT. But
it will turn out all right. ... I am going to study economy
with all my might ! I have those new kid gloves on the mantel-
piece to be ever before my eyes as a standing rebuke to my
extravagance!

He concludes with the wishful exclamation, '' Brighter
days!" and adds a postscript, '' O that I was worthy of
you!

The subject of the troublesome governess occurs in an-
other letter full of dissatisfaction with his meeting:

We had a good many people to tea. but a poor meeting. I
think it is the last speechifying meeting I will have. I had
not time or power to say anything, and people who had next
to nothing to do petted and patted the people, and no good was
done by such a service that I could see. In future I will
regard such meetings as being as much inine as the other

^-^ix] WILDERNESS 303

services. I will preside over them and wind them up in the
good old soul-saving fashion of my other meetings. Several
little things have occurred to disturb my equanimity.

I am right glad, heartily and honestly glad, that Miss C. is
going. She was not born for such a service as we require.
Don't be concerned. She will easily get another place. . . .
Don't be put about concerning anything.

. . . My only fear is that Mr. Paton is an enthusiast in his
way as far ahead of Independentism in spirit and discernment
and desire for aggressive spirituality as I am myself. How-
ever in a quiet way we will try. John Unwin was with us
last night. I like him less and less. It is strange, I could
have embraced Mr. Paton . . . but some of these revivalists,
I dislike them the more I see of them. I am a strange being,
perhaps. I wonder if I appear as bragging and mechanical in
my revivalism as some of these folks do.

. . . O for more of the Divine to mingle with the human!
I come far short just now.

After a flying visit to his family he writes to her :

Your tearful loving face is ever before me. I do so want
to receive a line to know how you are. I do hope you will
be cheered with a good day. I had a long weary journey, but
I got my head into the book and it beguiled the tedium and
withdrew my attention from the coarsish company and con-
verse around me.

He tells of meetings and love feasts, ofifers to bring some
new blankets that she requires, and complains of being
bothered by his underclothing — " the drawers being so
short." All through his letters runs this strain of domes-
ticity; there is nothing too small in the details of their
domestic economy for his care and attention. Another
letter is full of advice concerning dentists; he lays stress
on the wisdom of going to a man who is abreast of the
times, not old-fashioned.

In the letters wTitten on his missionary journeys, when
Sheffield w^as his headquarters, we are introduced every
now and then to the inconveniences of a travelling revivalist.
For example, he writes from Bury :

. . . left luggage at station and walked to Mr. Brown's, a
mile distant ; found him kind ; had tea, and at nearly 7 he
informed me that he had a meeting at 7, and he would take me

304 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

where he thought I could get lodgings and be comfortable.
He said he had two parties in his eye but did not kuozu whether
they could accommodate me. When we got to the houses both
wives were from home and therefore I could not be entertained
there. Here was a fix ! It was dark and rainy. After mak-
ing an enquiry or two, he gave in and took me to the house
of a friend and begged me accommodation until Monday, and
here I am. He was to call this morning. I have been ex-
pecting him every minute and he has not appeared yet. Still,
he is a very nice man.

A fit of depression seized him here. He found the people
'' cold as an ice-house." He is '* much disheartened." He
goes so far as to say, " I don't feel disposed to persevere
much longer in a life the results of which are really so
trifling." He goes on to say, sick at heart and suffering
in body:

I need not tell you how I should like to see you this morn-
ing, and how lonely life is without your precious society. All
the people appear only just tolerable. I don't know how it is,
but quick interesting folks seem Ytry rarely to cross my
path. My tooth acts very well, saving that I feel as though
I had some drying mineral in my mouth. I hope it is not the
metal.

Give my love to my dear children. Bless them. I think
much about them. Dear Katie's merry voice and laughter are
often ringing in my ears and so are the pretty ways and tricks
of them all. I forget their troublesomeness when away from
them.

At Hyde, near Manchester, the darkness covers him and
he is filled with despair. He speaks of a few conversions,
and then cries out, " But somehow my truth does not ap-
pear calculated for immediate results. I have not personally
the confidence in it I once had. Perhaps that is it. I must
try again." And then after telling how he lay sleepless
through the night, he goes on :

I wish I were in a more satisfactory state spiritually. I feel
almost dead; powerless. Consequently my preaching and
praying in public has but little effect on the people. But wish-
ing produces no improvement. O that God would come and
give me some new light or some new power. Will you pray
for me? I never felt less emotion and power in prayer in my
life. And I am sure I don't know what to do. . . .

XIX] WILDERNESS

305

It is no use me talking about my rebellion of heart against
this separation. I must submit and say, Thy will be done. I
wish I was sure that it was His zi'ili As I turned into my
lonely lodgings last night a young gentleman with a lady on
his arm knocked at the door of the house opposite mine, and I
could not help asking why I was parted from my young and
precious wife. I know why, and for a season it must be so
— perhaps we shall grow accustomed to it and not feel it so
much. I do feel a measure of comfort from the thought
that we are securing our own livelihood by it and not hanging
on to any one. That thought has been like a canker at my
heart of late. It must not be after that fashion. We will
work and then rest together and then work again.

He calls this letter of desolation and heroic resolve, " a
wear}^ rigmarole," and then declares. " such has been the
state of my head and nerves the last three weeks that I
have seemed to live in a sort of dreanif' His only comfort
just now is a '' family group," which he places on the
mantelpiece of his lodgings — *' a poor substitute, but the
best I have."

In another letter from Hyde the same dissatisfaction is
expressed :

... I feel so low and powerless spiritually. It is the Divine
we both need. But you far exceed me in the influence you
can command in a service. I should much like to spend the
evening with you all alone, far away from all excitement and
disturbance, where we could commune with each other's heart
and be still.

Then he speaks of the '' precious children " :

Let Willie do something every day in cyphering, if it be a
compound addition and subtraction. . . . Don't bother about
anything else but your work, and giving them a little lesson or
two. We must get some one to sew.

A governess is found in the person of a Miss McBean, and
he writes :

I am dehghted with your account of jNIiss ^IcBean. Strange
and good that she should have heard of us. Of course she had
an idea of what she was coming to. Hope the children will be
good and respectful. Tell her she must exact uniform obedi-
ence. Tell Willie that if he does not obey and set his brothers
and sisters an example in this matter he must prepare not only

3o6 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

to lose his dog, but to live in the attic while I am at home, for /
z>.'ill not see him. On the other hand, if they are good and
obedient, they shall have a party again on the Friday evening,
and have Patience, etc., and we will have a great many more
nuts and have some nice games, etc.

This extract, v^e think, is not merely typical of mid-
Victorian severity in the matter of managing children, but
it is in some wav characteristic of William Booth's theol-
ogy, a theology which never doubted the moral advantage
of offering a reward with the one hand and pointing out
grievous consequences for disobedience with the other.

It will be seen later on that William Booth's children
were very fond of him, and it is quite certain that in his
own way he was very fond of them. But we find in some
of these letters expressions of regret that he had forgotten
to say good-bye to them on one of his visits, or, in sending
a kiss to this or that child, he adds, " I forget whether I
said good-bye to him." One w^ould not speak of him, at
this time, as a father who adored his children ; and he was
sometimes irritated and aggravated by their noise; never-
theless, the children showed a very true devotion to him,
and in later life this affectionate and reverential feeling
for the tall, gaunt, dark-bearded man warmed into deep
and generous love. In the case of Willie, threatened W'ith
the attic and the loss of his dog, the father was to find the
most loving and faithful companion of his later and
widowed years.

Here and there in those letters of the w^andering preacher
occur references to the children which are charged with
tenderest affection and consideration ; in his own way — a
rough, strong, emotional, unsentimental way — he was ex-
tremely fond of them; but he is too absorbed by his work,
too distracted by anxieties, and too often tried by physical
pain to give them the whole and perfect love of a father's
heart. To Mrs. Booth was committed the care of the
family, and her character, at any rate in these early years,
was the supreme and formative influence in their lives.
Here, for instance, is a passage which shows how affec-
tionately the father thought of his children, and how thor-
oughly he comprehended that they belonged to their mother :

Bless my darlings for me. Call them in and put your hands

XIX] WILDERNESS 307

on their heads and bless them for their papa. In passing a
shop this morning I saw a large wooden horse. I almost
jumped and involuntarily exclaimed, that is the thing for my
dear little Bertie. I saw one of Tom Kenton's and one of
George Hovey's boys. But they don't touch yours. Yours
are the children ! O may they grow up to honour their Maker
and Redeemer.

It was in this year, 1864, that their sixth child was born,
Marian, w^ho, following an accident, developed serious
physical weakness, and was only reared to an invalid life
with considerable difficulty.

CHAPTER XX

THE MOVE TO LONDON

1865

By a strange chance it was Mrs. Booth who led the way out
of the wilderness. It was she, and not William Booth, who
laid the first stone of the Salvation Army.

While they were still living in Leeds, and he was still
thinking of taking a house in Sheffield, and establishing his
family there, Airs. Booth was invited to Rotherhithe in
South East London, and thither she journeyed, in 1865, to
conduct a brief mission. What she saw of the poor people,
and particularly the work being done by the Midnight
Movement to restore fallen women, made an instant and
overwhelming appeal to her heart. She resolved at once
that here was the sphere for which she had prayed and
longed ever since the Conference in Liverpool.

It is remarkable that some little time before this mission
in Rotherhithe was even suggested, Mrs. Booth wrote a
letter to her mother in which she prophesied the new de-
parture. After speaking of the coldness of the churches
and the hardness of the world, she said:

Well, we must labour and wait a little longer, it may be the
clouds will break and surround us with sunshine. Anyway,
God lives above the clouds, and He will direct our path. If
the present effort disappoints us I shall feel quite tired of
tugging with the churches, and shall insist on William taking
a hall or theatre somewhere. I believe the Lord will thrust
him into that sphere yet. IVe cant get at the masses in the
chapels. ... I think I shall come and try in London before
long.

Mrs. Booth's mission was a considerable success. In

some measure this success was no doubt due to the interest

created by a " Female Minister " ; bills were circulated with

the attractive invitation, '' Come and Hear a Woman

Preach " ; notices of her mission were published in some

308

[CHAP. XX] THE MOVE TO LONDON 309

of the religious papers; crowds flocked to hear her as a
new excitement. But the real cause of this unquestionable
success was the profound spiritual apprehension which in-
spired her oratory. No one who heard Mrs. Booth speak
could fail to be moved by her eloquence — an eloquence
entirely natural and entirely free from rhetoric. She spoke
with an overwhelming persuasiveness because she was
overwhelmingly persuaded of the truth of Christianity, and
because she felt in the depths of her heart and in every
fibre of her sensitive being the frightful sufferings, the de-
structive miseries, and the unutterable anguish of souls
imprisoned in the darkness of sin. Her mind — thanks, no
doubt, in some measure to the influence of William Booth
— was clean of Pharisaism. There was nothing there
which w^as narrow or mean. As for her heart, it was the
heart of a woman to whom love and compassion are the
very breath of existence. A brief account in The Wes-
ley an Times of a meeting of the Midnight Movement, in
which Mrs. Booth addressed a number of fallen women,
will furnish some idea of her breadth of view :

The address of Mrs. Booth was inimitable, pointed, evan-
gelical, impressive, and delivered in a most earnest, sympathetic
manner, bringing tears from many, and securing the closest at-
tention from all. She identified herself with them as a fellow-
sinner, showing that if they supposed her better than them-
selves it was a mistake, since all had sinned against God.
This, she explained, was the main point, and not the particu-
lar sin of which they might be guilty. Then the Saviour was
exhibited as waiting to save all alike, and the speaker urged all
of them, by a variety of reasons, to immediate decision.
Finally, the consequence of neglecting or accepting the offer of
mercy was set before them, and they were encouraged by the
relation of the conversion of some of the most degraded char-
acters whom Mrs. Booth and her husband had been instru-
mental in bringing to Christ.

We are told by Commissioner Booth-Tucker that the
sight of these victims of sin and misery deeply stirred the
heart of Mrs. Booth. " Not only," he says, '' did she view
with compassion their unhappy condition, but her indig-
nation knew no bounds that public opinion should wink at
such cruel slavery, while professing to be shocked at the

3IO THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

scarcely more inhuman brutality that bore the name in other
lands."

The paltriness of the efforts put forth to minimize the evil
staggered her, and the gross inequality with which society
meted out its punishments to the weaker sex, allowing the par-
ticipators in the vice to escape with impunity, incurred her
scathing denunciations.

What she saw in London greatly influenced Mrs. Booth
to make the metropolis her centre, although her idea was
still to work through existing religious agencies. With this
end in view they moved house to Hammersmith (1865).
It was not Mrs. Booth, but William Booth, w-ho conceived
the idea of going into the streets of East London, penniless
and unsupported, wuth his message of salvation.

The anxiety and depression which had so frequently
burdened the mind of William Booth during the last few
years arose in no small degree from disappointment at the
feeble and trifling after-effects of conversion. It will be
remembered that he wrote despairful letters to his wife
during the Cornish Revival; that is to say at a time when
he was drawing enormous crow^ds to hear him preach, and
wdien thousands of people were professing conversion. He
was not dejected by the failure of his oratory; he w^as not
inclined to doubt his mission because nobody came to hear
him. He was oppressed by w^hat he saw in the lives of
some of his converts after conversion. He thought that
so great a miracle as new birth ought to culminate in as
great a miracle — a new life. But these chapel people
remained, so far as he could judge, very much what they
were before conversion. At any rate, they did not become
missionaries; they did not make the great sacrifice; they
did not touch the lives of other people with the attraction
of Christ. Respectability, we must understand, did not
satisfy William Booth. He w^anted to change the whole
world, but he scarcely succeeded in changing a few people.
Converts told him that they were changed, but he himself,
in too manv cases, could see no alteration in their char-
acters or their way of living. It was because his ideal was
so lofty that he was thus dissatisfied; and because he was
so humble that he rather blamed himself than his converts.

XX] THE MOVE TO LONDON 311

He felt that something must be wrong in him; he doubted
his vocation; he faced the idea of going to London in search
of a secretaryship.

We shall see that something of the same doubt harassed
his mind for several years in London. He made converts
of the most degraded people and sent them to their churches
and chapels; but many of them relapsed, or became formal,
or did nothing to hasten the Kingdom of Heaven. It was
a matter of more than ten years, after his coming to Lon-
don, before William Booth perceived that the one way in
which he could lastingly change men and zvomen was to
make them, from the moment of their conversion, seekers
and savers of the lost.

' While Mrs. Booth was in London, her husband was
conducting a mission in Louth, Lincolnshire, and from
there he writes to her one or two characteristic letters, in
which one can see that the idea of London is in his mind,
although he is wholly unaware of the imminence of the
change which is to transform his life. But the chief value
of these letters, most of them unfortunately incomplete, is
the evidence they afford of the financial situation and the
difficult domestic life of these remarkable people.

One of the letters, written just before Mrs. Booth left
for London, and addressed to '' My dear little disconsolate
Wife," shows that she was cast down by the refusal of
some church to accept her ministry. '' I am sorr}' indeed
that they have declined," he writes. '' I don't like being
declined anyway. I am afraid the parson is at the bottom
of it. They will want you yet, I doubt not." The letter
proceeds later on :

When I talk about not giving way to feeling I don't mean
hardening our hearts. I only mean the bringing our minds as
far as we can in the present to our circumstances. What could
I do all alone here sitting down to fret and complain ? I have
not a soul to whom I can talk about you. I do very largely
tell ever>^body I meet all I can well edge in ; and then again,
fretting makes no better of it, so I stick to my writing and
work. You have the darling children, and are doing work for
eternity with them, and the way will I trust open for us to be
together again and that right early. If you get at work in
London I will try and make my way there and see how I
succeed. Don't say or think any hard things of me. And

312 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

then again, about your poor back, what a pity to make it bad
with sewing. Take care of yourself ; take and practise the
advice you give me. Get ready for work. Let us try again
for the glory of God. The Lord is using me here and bring-
ing up the Church. I have been at them all the week, and
the result is a great spirit of enquiry and reconsecration.
Many of the people have, I believe, really and truly conse-
crated, and w4th many more there is a healthful enquiry after
more of God.

In one of the letters addressed to Mrs. Booth in London
occurs this interesting passage :

Mr. Shadford spoke very kindly to me after you left. They
both sympathized with us very much, I believe. He reminded
me all the way through of the old gentleman who met and
talked to George at the Hotel there when he w^as running away
in Uncle Tom. As we went down to the station I said, '' I
forgot to pay for the things I had out of the shop, but I will
give it you at the station." " Why," he said, '' as far as that
I have a £5 note in my pocket to give you at the station, and
that is about how matters stand between us just now." With
a gentle exhortation to all reasonable economy, and a request
twdce urged that if at any time we were in any difficulty I was
to wTite him and he would help us, he passed the bit of dirty
paper to me w'hich I received gratefully and with a proper
measure of thanksgiving. ... I shall send him a line from
here and you must just write him a page. You heard hozv
they pitched into my zvriting and praised yours. There, as
elsewhere, I must decrease and you increase ! I enclose you
two halves, and send the other two to father. Put them to-
gether and let father deposit them with the cheque at the
Alliance Bank. . . .

When you told me that you had nothing left, I forgot the
Post Office Order. Vou surely did not spend that £6 as well
as all the cash I left behind. Well, I am determined to econo-
mise, and I shall write Mary to put the screw on. and I am
putting it on here myself. I will either stop this living at the
rate of £6 a week or I \\\\\ know the reason.^ It mortifies me
beyond measure. I won't blame you. I have very possibly
spent much lately. Those forks, etc., we could have done
without. If mother proposes to pay for the spoons, let her;
and she shall have that teapot. If I got her initials on it, it
would look something, and please her. You might bring it
about, some way or other. It won't become our table exactly
for the present.

^ £6 a week, for a family where the father and mother are constantly
away living in lodgings, does not seem a very extravagant allowance.

XX] THE MOVE TO LONDON 313

We find him confessing to extravagance in the next let-
ter:

I paid Miller £3:8:0 yesterday. I bought two books from
him for 2/6. One by Calvin Cotton on Revivals, and a good
School History of Greece for Willie and the children in turns.
He has 2 vols, of Macaulay's History of England, the 3rd and
4th. He offers them for 5/. Should I have them? I sup-
pose not. They are good reading for a leisure hour.

Later on in the same letter we read :

I have been very poorly ever since I came home. I have
had to shut out the children since breakfast. My head has
been so bad ; it is a little better. I went supperless to bed at
10 o'clock, in the hope of getting a refreshing night's sleep,
but was disappointed. I was awake very early, feeling dread-
fully.

Then he refers to her meetings in London :

I am glad you had so good a meeting. I have no doubt
about your adaptation for that sphere, or for almost any
sphere, and I could never stand in your way or prohibit your
labouring when . . . you could do so much good. This I
settled years ago. . . . All your talk about my adaptation
shows how ignorant you are of the kind of men who are now
at work, specially in London, and also of my '* superficiality " ;
but it is of no use talking on this theme ! I will come to Lon-
don, and once more. . . .

Here, unfortunately, the sheet ends, and the rest of the
letter is not to be found. The Booths moved to London
in this year, and set up house in Hammersmith.

Besides the money paid to them out of the collections
taken at their meetings, they were able to secure a small
additional income by the sale of their pamphlets and books.
William Booth managed his wife's pamphlets as well as
his own Song Book, and in one of his letters he says of a
sum of money, which is either £5 or £10, that " it is not
more, nor as much by pounds, as I have received for books
the last month." It would seem that by their missions,
their sale of books, and w^ith the help of one or two well-
off sympathizers, they were now earning some three or four
hundred pounds a year, but precariously. They lived with
extreme simplicity. The children were dressed without any

314 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.xx]

display. Mrs. Booth was one of those very capable women
who can find time for household work side by side with
great public activity. She was often in the kitchen, when
William Booth would come to consult her, he sitting on the
edge of the table, while she, with her hands covered in
dough, went on with her cake making. In more than one of
her letters to her mother she begs Mrs. Mumford, who was
an industrious needlewoman, not to send fine clothes for
the children. For example:

Accept my warmest thanks for the little frock you sent.
We like it very much. There is only one difficulty, namely,
it is too smart ! I shall have to give you full and explicit di-
rections in future as to the style, trimming, etc., for we really
must set an example in this respect worthy of imitation. I
feel no temptation now to decorate myself. But I cannot say
the same about my children. And yet, oh, I see I must be
decided, and come out from among the fashion-worshipping,
worldly professors around me. Lord, help me !

Not only did Mrs. Booth manage her house with great
thoroughness, but, in order to meet their heavier expenses
in London, she took in first one lodger, and afterwards,
in moving into a larger and more convenient house, two.
It is almost incredible that a woman so weak and delicate,
so often exposed to serious physical collapse, and so fre-
quently engaged in a most exhausting form of public work,
should have found time to superintend the education of her
children, to practise a careful domestic economy, and to
look after the needs of a large household including a couple
of lodgers. But Mr. Bramwell Booth, who perfectly re-
members this time, assures me that his mother did all
these things, and did them well.

CHAPTER XXI

A LADY lodger's ACCOUNT OF THE BOOTHS' HOME LIFE

1865-1867

It is not until the Booths take up their residence in Hackney
— where their daughter Eva was born — that we are able
to see them with any degree of clearness in the intimacy of
domestic life.

One of the ladies who went to lodge with them in 1867
was Miss Jane Short, whose age sits lightly upon her, whose
memory is as perfect as the most exacting biographer could
wish, and who is happily of a humorous disposition, with no
desire in the world to exaggerate the remarkable qualities of
her dead friends. Very often as she speaks of the Booth
household she breaks into cheerful laughter, recognising as
shrewdly as any practical and unimaginative person the
eccentricity of that family life. At the same time, her
testimony is emphatic to the nobility of the Booths, and to
the reality of their passionate religious zeal.

" To tell you the truth," she informed me at our first
meeting, '' I was terribly afraid of going to live with these
dear folk, because I had been so often disappointed, griev-
ously disappointed, in religious people. It seemed to me
that the Booths could not possibly be in their home life
what they were in their preaching. I thought I should see
things and hear things which would distress me; I could
not imagine that it was possible for them to live their ideals.
You see, I loved them so well that I quite shrank from find-
ing my hero-worship an illusion."

She had first encountered Mrs. Booth at Margate, where
the latter was conducting a Mission, and afterwards had
attended some of the preachings in the East End of London.
Admiration of Mrs. Booth had quickly ripened into friend-
ship, and William Booth had won her liveliest sympathy
and her utmost enthusiasm at their first encounter.

*' People who say that Mrs. Booth was the greater of

315

3i6 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

the two," declares Miss Short, " do not know what they are
talking about. Mrs. Booth was a very able woman, a very
persuasive speaker, and a wonderful manager; but the
General was a force — he dominated everything. I've
never met any one who could compare with him for strength
of character. You knew the difference in the house directly
he opened the door. You felt his presence in every de-
partment of the home life. He was a real master.

" You could never say No to the General! " she laughs.
" It was he who decided, not I, that I was to live with
them. When he said a thing had to be done, it was done,
and quickly, too. We used to call him ' The General ' long
before there was any Salvation Army. He couldn't bear
beating about the bush. Prevarication, like stupidity, ex-
asperated him. Everything had to go like clockwork, but
very much faster than time. I always say that he got
forty-eight hours' work out of the twenty-four."

And then, laughing quietly to herself, she says, "Of
course he w^as queer. He often used to say to me, ' Sister
Jane, the Booths are a queer lot,' and laugh mischievously,
for he was often laughing. I've known him suddenly kneel
down in the middle of breakfast and give thanks to God
because a letter he had opened contained money for the
Mission. He'd be tremendously in earnest at one moment,
and the next he'd be laughing at himself, saying that he
was a queer fellow. He'd change, too, in a twinkling of
an eye from gloom and dejection to a contagious hilarity
that carried everything before it. He suffered in those
days — neuralgia and indigestion; it was often dreadful to
see how the poor man suffered; but he would fling it all off
directly there was work to do, or if he had to comfort any-
body else, particularly Mrs. Booth. His love for his wife
was the most beautiful thin^ I have ever known. It really
was an exquisite thing. You know, perhaps, that Mrs.
Booth was a great invalid. Her sufferings, at times, made
her irritable and exacting. The least noise on some oc-
casions would almost distract her. Well, it was at such
times as these that the love of the General shone out most
beautifully. Never once did he say a harsh word, never
once did he try rallying her with rough encouragement; no,

XXI] HOME LIFE 317

he would be more courteous and chivalrous than ever; he
would make love to her as tenderly and sweetly as if she
were his sweetheart; and he would wait upon her, soothe
her, and nurse her with a devotion that I have never seen
equalled. I don't mean that he himself was never cross and
irritable. He was sometimes, in my opinion, a little too
stern with the children. But his love for his wife, well,
that w^as quite perfect; and when I look back now I can
see very clearly that it was this wonderful and beautiful
love for Mrs. Booth which made the greatest impression
on my mind. I may forget many other things about
them, but I shall never forget the General's love for his
wife."

The house in which they now lived, No. 3 Gore Road,
Hackney, was one of those detached, double-fronted, fam-
ily residences which are typical of the London suburbs and
therefore characteristic of the English bourgeoisie. With
a half -basement, a steep flight of steps to the front door,
large plate-glass windows, and a complete carelessness as
to architectural style, this big house had every impressive
charm which appeals to the middle-class English family.
It looked a rich man's dwelling; it was separate from its
neighbours; it possessed large living-rooms; and the road
in which it lifted up its solid virtues was reputable and
uneventful to the point of monotony. It was what people
call the house of a substantial man.

The other lodger was Miss Billups, daughter of the rich
contractor at Cardiff who had already befriended the
Booths' Mission out of a lively gratitude for spiritual bless-
ings. This lady was a trifle exacting, and never perhaps
became quite a member of the family. But Miss Short, w^ho
w^as soon known affectionately as Sister Jane, not only,
on occasion, shared her bedroom with one of the children,
and became a very intimate and beloved member of the
family, but worked herself very nearly to death's door in
the service of the Mission.

Although the demands of the Mission were enough to
disorganise the best-regulated family in the land, there was
a steady sense of orderliness in this household. Meals, for
instance, were served to the moment, and woe betide the •

3i8 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

child who came in five minutes late. The General never sat
at the head of his table, when Mrs. Booth was present, but
always beside her. She carved at dinner, or poured out
the tea. The meals were of an extreme simplicity, and a
generous rice pudding appeared on the table with every
dinner — haunting the minds of the children to this day.
Mrs. Booth held that no child need leave the table hungry,
however meagre the joint, so long as this rice pudding
completed the feast. There were currants in it on special
occasions.

Another characteristic of the Booth household was its
tidiness. The General hated above everything else, except
sin, untidiness, and dirt in every shape and form. His own
study was a model of neatness. But he insisted that the
same neatness should be observed elsewhere. The chairs
were drilled like soldiers. Not an antimacassar was al-
lowed to be out of place. The hearth must be swept con-
tinually. Books and toys were never permitted to be '' left
about."

One of William Booth's good qualities was a meticulous
attention to personal cleanliness. Long before the bath
was general in English life, he bathed himself every morn-
ing in cold water, with a hot bath once a week, and made
use of a foot-bath two and three times during the week.
He was very scrupulous in the matter of body linen, and
though his things might be darned in every direction, they
had to be extremely clean. He always wore long woollen
stockings reaching above the knee, with old-fashioned gar-
ters wound round and round, and he never changed these
articles without carefully turning them inside out; in his
extreme old age, when he had to be waited upon, he would
sometimes blaze into momentary ferocity if his attendant
was slovenly in this particular. He was very often shabby,
except in the matter of boots, but never slovenly. It is not
difficult to see how the sympathies of such a man, to whom
dirt was horrible and an evil smell so execrable that it often
produced in him a fit of nausea, must have been quickened
by the frightful barbarism of the London slums.

It seems to have been essential with him, even from the

The opposition from the lower orders was increasing

XXI] HOME LIFE 319

very beginnings of the Mission in London, that he should
break away every now and then and get into the pure air
and beautiful surroundings of the country.

" We used to make excursions into the Forest," Miss
Short told me, " and those were certainly among the Gen-
eral's happiest days. He was like a schoolboy directly he
got away from London, laughing, singing, and joking
nearly all the time. But, mind you, he never went away
w^ithout his Bible in his pocket, and I think he hardly ever
passed by a gipsy without speaking to him about his soul.
I've heard him say to a man, for instance, cutting short a
tale of some kind, ' But what you said was untrue. It was
a lie. You ought not to tell lies. Don't you know it's
wrong to tell a lie? What does God think of you when
you say what isn't true ? ' And very well I remember that
one day we were sitting at the foot of a great tree in the
Forest, he with his head on his wife's knee reading the
thirty-sixth chapter of Ezekiel, when he suddenly raised
his head at the words, Then zmll I sprinkle clean water upon
you and ye shall he clean: from all your filthiness, and
from all your idols, will I cleanse you — and fixed his eyes
upon me, hard and shining, and demanded, ' Do you believe
that, Jane Short? — do you beHeve it — cleansed from all
your filthiness ? ' I remember how that question seemed
to flash into the depths of my soul."

This story reminded Miss Short of the General's curtness
in religious discussions and in religious meetings. " He
was always practical," she said, " and he detested cant. If
anybody prayed too long in a meeting, the General would
cut him short with a loud ' Amen.' After a particular
prayer-meeting, which I very well remember for its marv^el-
lous influence on many souls, the General sprang up and
said : * We've been in heaven ; now for work.' But cant
moved him to fierce anger, even the very semblance of it.
A missionary came to him once in those early days and
offered his services. The General inquired about his means
of existence, and the man replied that he trusted in the Lord.
' Do you trust me, though? ' demanded the General ; ' come
now, speak out ; what do you v^ant ? ' He was a wonder-

320 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

fill, very nearly an infallible judge of character; but he
Avas taken in more than once — always, however, by men
he had rather questioned from the first."

It may be imagined that a woman so delicate and so
constantly engaged as Mrs. Booth had little time for the
society of her children. She cut out and made most of
their clothes; she heard their prayers, and for some reason
she always insisted upon washing their heads ; but neither
her health nor her engagements, nor perhaps her disposition,
allowed her to play with them. Miss Short considers them
the most attractive children that ever breathed, declaring
that the two chief impressions left upon her mind from
those years, are first the wonderful love of William Booth
for his wife, and, second, the delightful nature of the chil-
dren.

"Of course they were odd, " she says, smiling, " for, as
the General told me, all the Booths are queer; but they
were the frankest, purest, sweetest-minded children I ever
knew. And the General knew this well, and although he
was sterner than most parents are now, and certainly he
did often whip where another would have tried gentler meth-
ods, still he loved them dearly, particularly Bramwell, who
probably came in for more whippings than any of his
brothers! And this is quite certain, the children adored
their parents. They thought there were no two people in
the world who could compare with their father and mother.
The favourite game of the little girls in the nursery was a
prayer-meeting, and they used to have a penitent-bench
where the dolls were made to kneel. Often I have hardly
been able to keep from laughing at the sight of a very
ragged doll, all the hair gone and a great hole in the head,
kneeling at the penitent-bench. Bramwell was the first to
show any inclination to depart from the lives of his parents.
He wanted to be a surgeon ; he would spend hours dissect-
ing the body of a mouse. I remember that he once bor-
rowed a doll from his sister Emma, and cut it open. She
burst out crvins: when she saw the sawdust streaming: awav
from it, and Bramwell exclaimed indignantly, ' Silly child !
do you think you can have an operation without blood ? '

" But religion was the chief characteristic of the children's

XXI] HOME LIFE

321

lives. I can tell you a story which shows how religion en-
tered into their thoughts. My father, who lived at a little
distance from the Booths, was a very old-fashioned man,
who smoked a churchwarden pipe and drank the general
drink of that day, gin and water. One afternoon Ballington
Booth paid him a visit, and when my father's back was
turned the naughty boy drank up a good deal of the gin
and water! Directly he got home, he burst open the door
of the room where his father was working, and exclaimed
in quite a frenzy of alarm, ' Papa, papa, I've broken my
pledge ! ' It was some time before his agitation could be
dispersed, I remember another story, too. When the same
child had been naughty, his father said to him : ' Now
would you rather that I prayed with you or whipped you ? '
Of course the child chose prayer. Then the General said,
' We'll see what prayer will do for you; we'll try that first;
if it doesn't make you a good boy I shall whip you.' It
might not have been a wise thing to say, but the child was
sincere, and really did pray to be a good boy."

]\Irs. Booth was often unable at this time to bear the
noise of the children, and they never played downstairs
when she had retired. But William Booth made it a rule,
so far as his engagements would allow, to give to them a
part of his evenings at home, and the children would come
charging into the room for a romp with their father. There
was no set game, so far as I can discover, although '' Fox
and Geese " was a favourite, but a scrimmage of some kind
was the usual amusement. William Booth would lie full
length upon the floor, and the smaller children had to try and
pull him up. He loved to be tousled; like other men of
whom we have heard, he delighted in having his hair ruffled
and his head scratched; he would sit reading a book with
complete absorption, while one of his children sat upon the
arm of his chair rubbing his head.

" One evening," says Miss Jane Short, " his daughter
Emma, then about six, amused herself by putting his long
hair into curl papers. She worked away until the whole
head of the General was covered with little twists of paper
— such a sight you never saw in your life. And when she
had finished her work, the door opened and a servant en-

322 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

tered announcing a visitor. L'p sprang the General, and
was all but in the hall when the children flung themselves
upon his coat-tails and dragged him back, screaming with
laughter. You can fancy that v/hen the General looked in
the glass he laughed too.

" By the way, I always think it is a good test of a man's
character to know what his servants think of him; and
certainly the servants in Gore Road loved, I was going to
say idolised, the Booths. The General might be harsh and
abrupt at times, but they could not do enough for him, and
they were never in the least afraid of him. I remember
that sometimes, after a very exhausting Sunday, the Booths
would take their breakfast in bed, and the maid used to
laugh quite frankly at the General's appearance on these
occasions. They felt for him every possible respect, but
there was no fear and no severity in their attitude; they
considered themselves members of the family, associated
themselves with its fortunes, and entered as heartily into
the religious enthusiasm of the household as into the fun
and cheerfulness."

Although William Booth had an almost unreasonable,
or at an}' rate a Hebraist's contempt for games — hating
cricket and football as if they were sins — he entered with
a boy's sympathy into the enthusiasm of his sons for ani-
mals. The garden at Gore Road was given up to rabbits,
guinea-pigs, rats, mice, and fowls. The boys owned these
creatures and ruled over them, but the father drew almost as
much pleasure from them as did the sons. He would go
round the cages and watch the feeding. If a man of one
idea, and that idea a burning consciousness of the existence
of a God, can be said to have a hobby, the hobby of William
Booth was this boyish delight in the pets of a back-garden.
His sons consulted him in every new venture, and he seems
to have shared their excitement at every fresh addition to
the menagerie. Bramwell Booth remembers that his father
took a particular interest in his silkworms.

'' I don't think any father could ever have been prouder
of his children than the General,'' says ^liss Short. '' I am
quite certain that it hurt him not to dress them up in beauti-
ful clothes. But he insisted on simple, plain, strong clothes,

XXI] HOME LIFE 323

not only for the sake of economy, but for the sake of setting
an example. It used to make him furious when he saw the
way in which poor people w^asted precious money on stupid
finery. He wouldn't even allow the family to go into
mourning when Mrs. Mumford died, saying that the London
poor ruined themselves by wearing black for a funeral.
But he longed, I know, to see his children finely dressed,
all the same. I've heard him say to them, ' When I get
you all to heaven, I'll deck you; it will be safe there.' And
once or twice he succumbed to temptation. I said to Mrs.
Booth once, ' Wouldn't Herbert look lovely in a black vel-
veteen suit with red stockings ? ' — and then I told the
General that it was shameful to dress such a beautiful child
in plain, ugly things, asking him whether the poor would
be any worse off for seeing the little child in velveteen.
Well, I got my way for once ; but the child only wore the
suit two or three times. I think they carried th.'s idea too
far."

Another disastrous experiment in fine raiment carried
with it a religious commentary. Mrs. Booth bought some
beautiful silk for the girls' dresses, and gave it to one of
the women converted in the Mission for making-up, the
material being too splendid for home manufacture. Un-
fortunately the temptation of this silk was too much for
the Whitechapel woman, who disappeared with the material
and was never heard of again. Mrs. Booth regarded this
disaster as a lesson.

On one occasion some very fine toys were sent by rich
people for a bazaar which Mrs. Booth was organizing in
East London. Miss Short suggested that the children of
poor people would not know what to make of such things,
and counselled Mrs. Booth to buy them in for her own
children. *' But she wouldn't listen to me," says Miss
Short, *' though I could see that she would have been
pleased to possess the toys for her own children. She said
they were intended for the poor, and the poor must have
them; and she said that she had no right to spend money
on such things. I never knew people in my whole life who
had such a perfect horror of debt. There were times when
they were exceedingly poor, driven, one might say, for a

324 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

sixpence ; but never once did they incur a single debt. Mrs.
Booth told me that she would far rather starve than owe
a penny, and the General held the same views. They w^ere
terribly strict where money was concerned."

With such views on clothes it may be guessed that the
Booths entertained very strict notions as to the wearing
of jewellery. What was their horror, then, W'hen Balling-
ton w^alked into the room one day at tea-time with a ring
on his finger — purchased w^ith a shilling which had re-
cently been given to him. Some of the astonished children,
we regret to chronicle, set up a shout, " Ballington's a
back-slider ! " and for a moment a scene of confusion reigned
at the tea-table. Then the voice of the General was heard,
loud, deadly, and authoritative : " Silence ! His mother
will deal with him later." The meal proceeded awkwardly,
and when it was over Ballington was closeted for some ten
minutes with his mother. *' He came out from that inter-
view," says Miss Short, " with very red eyes and without
the ring."

When the last baby, Lucy, was born in 1867, the General
informed the other children of this event in the following
manner: ''Now, listen; I have got a wonderful piece of
news for you. God has sent us a most beautiful present."

At once there w^as a shout, " Is it alive? "

*' Yes," said the General, " it's alive."

"Is it a dog?"

" No."

"A donkey?"

'' No."

After a few more guesses at live-stock, the General said,
with great impressiveness, " It's a baby! "

There was a shout of joy, an instant demand to see the
newcomer, and then the children crept upstairs after their
father, on tiptoe, and were shown the baby. Then Balling-
ton said, " That's what I've been praying for — a baby " ;
but Miss Short is disposed to think that for some weeks
Ballington had been praying industriously for a donkey.

" I must tell you," says Miss Short, '* about the death
of Mrs. Mum ford. In those days the Booths had not given
up the Communion service, and towards the last, poor

XXI] HOME LIFE 325

Mrs. Mum ford, who had suffered untold agonies from
cancer, asked that the General should give her the Sacra-
ment. I was present then, as I was also present at her
death, and I cannot tell you how deeply I was affected
by the beautiful tenderness of the General on that occasion.
He made one feel that the whole service was deeply per-
sonal to the poor dying w^oman; he put his arm about her,
bent his face close to hers, and said — I shall never forget
it — ' Take and eat this, Mother, in remembrance that Christ
died for thee/ and, ' Drink this. Mother, in remembrance
that Christ's Blood was shed for thee/ and his voice, though
it trembled with tenderness, was strong wdth faith. I re-
member, too, how we were all sent for late one night, and
how Bramwell and Ballington w^ere brought to her bed-
side. This was the first experience either the General or
his wife had had of death in their own immediate circle.
They were both deeply affected. Mrs. Mumford desired
to testify, and she testified in a weak and faltering voice
to her unshaken faith in Christ. Afterwards, sinking back
on her pillow and closing her eyes, she said, ' Sing.' The
General sang a hymn and told the boys to sing with him,
saying, ' Softly, softly.' While wx sang that hymn very
quietly, Mrs. Mumford relapsed into unconsciousness, and
remained unconscious until i o'clock the next day. Her
death was remarkable. Mrs. Booth was kneeling at her
side, holding her hand, and quite suddenly Mrs. Mumford
regained consciousness, opened her eyes wide, and with a
light on her face that was unearthly, exclaimed, ' Kate ! —
Jesus ! ' and was gone in that moment."

The children, as one can well imagine, were greatly agi-
tated by this death; Bramwell, in particular, was thrown
into a highly nervous condition of grief. '' I remember,"
says Miss Short, " how he would listen to no comfort from
any of us, and how his father had to be fetched, and how
the General bounded up the two flights of stairs to the
boy's bedroom, taking him in his arms, and comforting him
with a maternal tenderness while he explained the Christian
hope of union."

Mrs. Booth, for some unexplained reason, insisted that
her husband should be present at the post-mortem examina-

326 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

tion which followed Mrs. Mumford's death. This ex-
amination was made in the interest of medical science, for
the cancer from which ]\Irs. Mumford had suffered so long
was of an unusual and perplexing character. Why Mrs.
Booth made this stipulation, unless it was to ensure rever-
ence for her mother's remains, cannot be understood by
Miss Short ; for, not only was their doctor a very sincere
Christian, a man in whom they all reposed an unbounded
confidence, but she knew very well that William Booth
shrank from any distressing sight, and found it almost im-
possible to support the sight of pain.

*' You could not meet a man," says Miss Short, " whose
nerves were more tortured by the spectacle of suffering.
Pain, the sight of pain in others, made him wretched. He
would turn away from it, quite sick and dizzy. I am sure
it was this horror of suffering that helped to make him so
terribly in earnest as a preacher, for he saw clearly that
sin is a chief cause of nearly every form of pain and suffer-
ing. People w^ill never know what he endured in the slums
of great cities."

Immediately after the death of Mrs. Mumford, William
Booth was taken ill, and it was discovered that he had
contracted enteric fever. In his delicate state of health,
such an illness w^as of the gravest menace, and for some
time his life hung upon a thread. " Well, Sister Jane,"
he exclaimed to Miss Short, who came to visit him, " you
see the lion chained at last." His courage, and his cheer-
fulness, carried him through this dangerous illness,

" He loved Mrs. Mumford like a son," says Miss Short,
" and he loved his own mother — such a grand-looking old
woman, stately and solemn, very Jewish in feature — with
a boy's love to the last. One Sunday, w^hen he was staying
with them in London, he preached a sermon, to a crowded
church, on Peace. Old Mrs. Booth was immensely proud
of him, and when he returned she said to him, * William,
you preached a beautiful sermon.' He looked at her, a
smile of roguishness in his eyes, and said, * You've heard
your son preach ; how would you like to hear him pray,
just as he used to pray, when he was a boy? ' And there
and then he dropped on his knees before her, buried his

WILLIAM BOOTH'S MOTHER
(Mary Moss Booth)

XXI] . HOME LIFE

327

face in her lap, and prayed with an intensity and a force
that carried us all away. In another moment he was on
his feet, bright again, saying to me, ' Haven't I often told
you, Sister Jane, that the Booths are a queer lot?' Once
I said to him, ' You ought to have been an actor/ and he
looked at me, nodded his head, and laughingly replied, ' I
should have made my living ! ' He knew perfectly well
that he could throw himself into almost anything, and,
although he thought his wife was the better preacher for
certain audiences, he knew that he could hold vast numbers
of all sorts and conditions spellbound. I am quite sure
that he would have been a great actor; but oh, wouldn't
he have been unhappy without religion! "

Miss Short cannot remember a single occasion on which
theological difficulties, difficulties of faith, were discussed
at the Booth table. Although religion entered into every
detail of their lives, they never spoke — at any rate before
Miss Short — of intellectual problems, all their difficulties
lying in the sphere of conduct. To live more perfectly in
accord with the Christ spirit, to make other Christians
more earnest, to save sinners from temporal wretchedness
and everlasting damnation — these were the chief subjects
of their table-talk. " I think it was the suffering and
misery all about them," says Miss Short, " which made
the General and his wife stick to the simple elementary
truths of religion. I know this, that they had made up
their minds to treat the London poor exactly like heathen.
It would have been absurd to preach to these poor people
about theology; and the General, whose heart was torn
by suffering, centred himself on saving their souls. I have
heard him preach very beautiful sermons on love, and I
remember in particular a sermon on the text. Acquaint now
thyself with Him, and he at peace, which was as gentle as it
was moving; but he used to say, whenever we praised ser-
mons of this kind, ' No ; the best preaching is Damnation,
with the Cross in the middle of it.' Experience had taught
him that. The heathen poor had to be roused to a sense
of their danger before they could shake off their spiritual
torpor, and even desire immortal happiness. I don't think
his thoughts ever wandered very far from that centre of

328 THE LIFE OF GENERAL BOOTH [chap.

religion. He believed that the Bible was the inspired Word
of God; and in the Bible he found that the injunction to
repent preceded the invitation to holiness. No one in his
house questioned for a single moment, or in any respect,
the truth of the Bible."

As an example of the harrowing effect produced upon
William Booth's mind by the destitution and depravity of
London, Aliss Short relates the story of the first Christmas
Day she spent in his home. " The General," she says, " had
determined that the children should have a thoroughly
happy old-fashioned Christmas, and for a week beforehand
every preparation was made for a great family festival.
The children Vv^re full of excitement, their father entered
into the spirit of the thing, and I really thought it would
be a day of the purest happiness. But when the General
returned from his preaching in Whitechapel on Christmas
morning, he was pale, haggard, and morose. He did his
best to enter into the children's fun and frolic, but it was
no use ; he kept relapsing into silence and gloom. He
looked dreadfully white and drawn, just as if he were ill
or harassed by some grievous worry. And then suddenly
he burst out, ' Til never have a Christmas Day like this
again ! ' and, getting on his feet and walking up and down
the room like a caged lion, he told us of the sights he had
seen that morning in Whitechapel, indignantly saying, ' The
poor have nothing but the public-house ^ nothing but the
public-house ! ' I remembered how he had once stepped me
at every public-house in the Mile End Road, pointing to
the young men and the young w^omen who crowded the
different bars, exclaiming, ' Look at that ! — look at it I —
enough to make the angels weep!' Sights of this kind,
which other people would see and regret, seemed to stab
him to the heart; other people only saw th